All it takes to wreak havoc in a colony of common murres is one bald eagle. Gulls spot the eagle from a distance and sound the alarm, and the murres nesting on the cliff bob their heads nervously. As the big raptor swoops down, the stocky black-and-white seabirds flee, leaving their eggs and chicks behind. Gulls and crows then quickly move in and gobble as many as they can. “It is heart-stopping,” says Roy Lowe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife project leader for the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Over the last 15 years, he's witnessed an ever-growing number of bald eagle raids on seabird colonies.
