Demon Chicks Invade Bermuda.

A Lonely? Paradise

Even after being discovered in the 1500s, humans didn’t settle Bermuda until around 1609, which is pretty late, and even then it took a shipwreck to do it. Consider, for comparison, one of the last places outside of the poles to be settled on earth, New Zealand. It was settled between 1200 and 1300CE. So Bermuda sat for a long time, with dozens of species evolving without the “help” of humans, but why? For one thing, it’s surrounded by a dangerous reef that was hard to navigate. For another, it was known as “The Isle of Devils”, thanks to the haunting call from this terrifying winged beast:

A VERY rare look at a cahow (Bermuda Petrel) chick in its den on Nonsuch! There are fewer than 450 of these birds left, which is amazing considering they were almost extinct.

Yes, the frightful cahow bird helped keep humans away from this paradise for hundreds of years, and the result was an untouched, natural paradise. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of cahows (AKA the Bermuda Petrel) nested here. By 1620, they were all but extinct. 

They survived. 

Fast-forward to 1951, when several pairs of cahows were discovered on some tiny islets, and sparked an unprecedented effort to turn nearby Nonsuch Island, an ecologically barren place, into one of the longest-running species recovery efforts in the world, and a re-wilding project that has served as a model for perhaps thousands of others around the globe. David B. Wingate, a Bermudian conservationist, took charge of saving the species. In 1962, the Bermuda government designated Nonsuch Island as a protected reserve. Wingate moved onto the island and began a bold idea: not just protect birds—but recreate Bermuda’s pre-colonial ecosystem. In the 1970s, a very young J.P. Rouja, who we met earlier this week, volunteered to help, and set the roots of his first native plant on Nonsuch. 

We catch up with the story of this bird here in 2026. Earlier in the week, Heather and I met with J.P., now a conservationist who conducts several projects on the Island. He invited us out here on our last morning in Bermuda for a tour, with several other people from around the island. We were picked up at a tiny fishing dock by skipper Chase and first mate Ben, who operate a big pontoon boat with a bimini top. As we motored across the bay, J.P. pointed out the ruins of some of the earliest structures built by Europeans in the new world as a flock of white-tailed tropic birds (locally known as longtails) performed mating rituals above us. We tied up to a dock on Nonsuch, in a cove created by a 1930’s shipwreck that was placed here as a breakwater. 

Before we could walk onto the island, J.P. inspected the bottom of our shoes for any dirt that could contaminate the soils here with invasive microbes. He then led us on a hike around the Island, describing its history, the effort to reclaim it, and most importantly, the project to restore the cahow. These birds need a very specific habitat, and the chicks are easily killed by rats and other birds. J.P. and others have designed concrete lairs for these fluffy phenoms, and their success is nothing short of spectacular. As he was describing the effort, whales breached behind us. 

The long tail tropic birds put on quite a show, but the whales breaching in the distance (too far to photograph) always steal focus.

A watery exit 

Heather and I are here to scout this place as an excursion for a SwimVacation trip here, so with our eyes on that we split from the group and jumped in the water on the north side of the island, and swam around to the 1930s wreck. It was filled with chummy parrotfish, and was generally cool to swim around.

Uh-oh, we have a 2:30 flight back to Boston. Better get moving. Double uh-oh, lots of cab drivers don’t work during this holiday weekend, and certainly not on this remote part of the island, so being dropped off at the dock from which we were picked up was not an option. “No problem”, said skipper Chase, “I’ll just drop you near the airport”. Problem solved. After dropping the bimini for a tight squeeze under a bridge, Heather and I were dropped at a rocky beach just a short hike across a couple of roads and a long-term parking lot from the departure entrance. 

U.S. Customs has a check point here, and we zoomed through that, negating the need to do it in Boston, where nobody “zooms” through. A sandwich later, and we were in the air for a scant 1.25 hour flight. I watched the second half of the Formula One movie. Brad Pitt saved the day and got the girl, though he wrecked a few more cars. Our bus ride pack to Portland, ME was longer than the flight from Bermuda to Boston. 

Bermuda has called us…….

Bermuda really impressed us. The people are absolutely lovely and welcoming. The water is clean and clear, with a hundred shades of breathtaking turquoise. Swimming locations are plentiful and varied, allowing for swims in many kinds of weather. The Hamilton Princess is a first-class operation, with effortless charm and hospitality. Heather and I will spend the next couple of weeks building the trip, crunching the numbers, and maybe, just maybe, announce a SwimVacation trip here very soon. Thank you, Bermuda! We are going home better.

Hopper