Bermuda?s Cahows are slowly recovering after their Castle Harbour island nesting sites were decimated in Hurricane Fabian.

Three months after the storm roared over the four South Shore islands, Government Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros said that following repairs to the burrows, one pair of birds has successfully started a new nest.

He explained that after Fabian, a full reconstruction of the bird?s man-made nesting sites had to be undertaken.

?The hurricane had a really catastrophic effect on all four islands that the Cahows live on.

?Sixty out of the active nest burrows were rendered totally unusable,? Mr. Madeiros said.

When the hurricane hit Bermuda, the Cahows were not due back to their island home for six weeks, therefore Mr. Madeiros and his team had time to repair the burrows before their return.

With the help of divers Mark Outerbridge and Lisa Kitson, as well as Mr. Madeiros, 38 concrete tops with a hole, which close off the burrows, were pulled out of the ocean surrounding the four islands.

Three hurricanes subsequently passed Bermuda after Hurricane Fabian and disturbed the waters around the islands but in the end, Mr. Madeiros said most of the concrete blocks were usable.

The construction of a nesting burrow is very particular, as Cahows will most likely stay with the same burrow for their entire lives, Mr. Madeiros explained.

The birds know precisely where to return, as the nocturnal animals keep track of where their burrows are by spending hours memorising the pattern of the stars outside of their nesting burrows, he said.

Mr. Madeiros said he recently caught a pair digging at an area where their nest had been before Fabian ripped it away.

?We tagged and released the pair next to a new burrow and the hope is that they will accept it.

?It?s a bit early to tell, but we carry out checks every three or four days on average. We have one pair that have already successfully accepted the burrow and they?ve stayed and built a nest and the second pair, which we moved, has stayed in it (the burrow) for two whole days,? he said.

The birds can?t dig their own nests on the islands and the last 40 years have been spent trying to establish a full colony of Cahows, a petrel that was once thought to be extinct and brought back from the brink by Bermuda?s Dr. David Wingate and now his successor, Mr. Madeiros.

Thanks to the hard working team that Mr. Madeiros has been overseeing, the Cahow burrows have been redesigned at a higher, safer elevation on the islands.

?We?ve moved the burrows 12 to 15 feet higher so they are much safer from extreme hurricanes.

?We moved 4,000 pounds of concrete mixed on Nonsuch (island) and took them out to the other islands with a four-man crew.

?We took these buckets of concrete and landed them ashore to transport it to the top of the islands to build the burrows. We try to build them so they last at least a couple of hundred years by using recycled cardboard and the ends of the rolls of newsprint. We make a papier-m?ch? mould and make a five to ten foot long tunnel and then a large nest at the end.?

The birds, being as particular about their living space as they are, must have a completely dark nesting burrow because they are completely nocturnal.

Last week a sound technician from Cornell University in New York arrived to record and file the sound of the Cahow mating call, Mr. Madeiros said.

Mark Reaves will file the sound of the birds into the species sound library and he will create a disc to entice the Cahows to fly to a safe nesting area.

?These are critically endangered species but it?s almost better known worldwide in the science community than it is in Bermuda,? Mr. Madeiros said.

?With the disc of mating calls, we can start to imagine how the Spanish must have felt when they arrived in Bermuda. They make some pretty ghostly sounds.

?But what they (Cahows) like is to go close to courtship behaviour. If there is a safe mating place it is more attractive,? he said.

A sound playback machine that is solar powered will also be installed that will continuously broadcast the mating call.

Scientist Susan Schubel was also on the Island with the machine that has successfully established a Puffin community and other different species of seabirds, Mr. Madeiros explained.

?We?ll get the equipment on Nonsuch to help attract the Cahows to nesting burrows and relocate the birds that are homeless.

?If something is threatening the birds we can use the equipment to attract them to a new, safer island.?

Mr. Madeiros said most people are not aware that the Cahows live on four islands that surround Nonsuch island, but he said the hope is that with the disc of mating calls and the playback machine, the birds will be enticed to relocate to Nonsuch. The island is a much safer haven for the birds to live, he said.

The Cahows will be leaving soon to produce eggs and when they return after Christmas they will need a safe place to lay them. Mr. Madeiros is hoping that the pairs will come back and accept their new homes that have been built specifically for the Cahows.