The "royal cam" - a webcam trained on the nest of a five-day-old albatross chick at the Taiaroa Head colony - went live this morning at 10am.
Department of Conservation Taiaroa Head ranger Lyndon Perriman said the camera would stay live for the next eight months, at which point the chick would leave its nest to leave the headland for the first time.
For the first four to six weeks of the chick's life, its parents would trade off staying at the nest with it, because the chick was too vulnerable to be left on its own, Mr Perriman said.
It was a long process getting the inaugural live camera up and running, but being able to film a chick's fledging process was a "fantastic opportunity", he said.
