To Save A Bird, Scientists Try An Egg Bait-And-Switch

[petronius]

Portia Halbert is hiking through a quiet redwood forest in Butano State Park, an hour south of San Francisco, when she spots a blue egg on the ground — generally a very bad sign.

The blue eggs are laid by marbled murrelets, a small, endangered bird that eats out at sea and nests in the forest here. This egg was likely knocked out a tree by a bird, explains Halbert, Butano's park scientist.

But this egg is a bait and switch: It's not a murrelet egg at all, but a trick egg that Halbert made from a small chicken egg. "We paint them to look like marbled murrelet eggs," she says.

The real trick is inside the egg — and it's a rude surprise.

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http://www.npr.org/2014/09/02/345295483/to-save-a-bird-some-hope-to-give-its-predators-a-stomach-ache

Just heard this story on NPR - pretty interesting. I'm always careful about keeping food away from the bears, and from the gulls and squirrels etc, but I never really thought about jays...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbled_murrelet

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Very interesting. I hope their plan works.

[bvf]

2. Heard the story on NPR as well.

Encouraging results (75% success rate, if I heard right).