How do these birds exist in the wild if a single predator sighting causes them to abandon their eggs?
Edit: I'm downvoted, so this is a legitimate question. How could it be that these birds have lasted when one predator causes the abandonment of 3000 eggs? Has no predator ever appeared on these islands?
It was more than just "a single predator sighting." The article says it was two drones and one of them crashed, which is a lot more dramatic. They didn't say how close the crash was to the nesting birds. And they didn't say how long the drones were flying around and how they were flying around before the birds decided to abandon. We don't know, perhaps they were buzzing the terns at a low altitude, or hovering for a long time in a way that looked like a falcon.
There's a big difference between a dangerous looking person passing you by on a busy street, and one that's standing on the sidewalk in front of your house, staring at your window for an hour.
Some birds are very neophobic. And some types of birds have less commitment to eggs than chicks -- a new nest and new eggs can be laid, but actual hatched chicks are much harder to abandon. Terns are very social, so a few abandoning their nests might easily lead to a mass exodus.
Admittedly the drone crashing is more than a sighting, but it still stands that that is less than what a real predator would do. I just cant imagine these birds surviving while they abandon all that en mass every time a falcon attacks them. Seems like there has to be more to this story
It's quite possible. According to https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/generation-seabirds-wiped-dr... , while a news crew was interviewing the environmental scientist in charge and a DFW officer, a third person brought and began flying a drone, sending it directly toward another tern colony. I suspect that being buzzed by drones has been going on for a while and perhaps the crash was just the last straw.
That's exactly why I'm surprised. I don't understand why the birds don't come back after the excitement is over -- except possibly the ones closest to the crash site.
Is it possible that in the circumstances, they can't find their nests? I assume that normally all the birds don't fly off all at once, so maybe that makes it easier to find their nests - perhaps they remember whose nests are next to whom (or is that too complex for birds?)- but when all the birds fly off at once then it becomes impossible to find one's own nest?
