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Image Gallery: Saving the Rare Marbled Murrelet

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Protecting the Marbled Murrelet

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets, redwood forests

(Image credit: Keith Bensen.)


A rare bird called the marbled murrelet lives at sea but nests on tall, thick redwood branches. Attacks by Steller's jays, another type of bird, on murrelet eggs and chicks are one of the small bird's greatest modern threats. Biologists hope to train wild jays to avoid murrelets by setting out dummy eggs laced with a vomit-inducing chemical.

Marbled murrelet

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)


An adult marbled murrelet spends its life at sea, flying ashore once a year to nest in old-growth redwood trees.

World's tallest trees

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: National Park Service)


Redwoods, where murrelets make there nests, are the world's tallest trees.

Murrelet nest

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: Keith Bensen.)


Marbled murrelets nest in old-growth redwoods because they have thick branches that are high above the forest floor. The "duff" on the branches makes a fine nest. Duff is tree needles and other debris that accumulates on the branches.

Old-growth redwoods

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: National Parks Service.)


Fog drifts through a stand of old-growth trees in Redwoods National Park in California.

Murrelet chick

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: Keith Bensen.)


A marbled murrelet chick makes its first flight straight to the ocean, a trip as far as 50 miles (80 kilometers). No test flights for these birds, biologists say.

Murrelet egg

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets, redwood forests

(Image credit: Keith Bensen.)


The speckled, blue-green marbled murrelet eggs are pointed on one end so they don't roll off the nest.

Steller's jay

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)


The Steller's jay likes campgrounds and picnic sites, and its population is booming in western forests. Though the jay doesn't rely on eggs for food, the dense population living near murrelet nesting sites means some birds find and eat murrelet eggs and chicks.

Fake eggs

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: Richard Golightly)


A Steller's jay inspects a fake murrelet egg that contains a vomit-inducing ingredient called carbachol. The red egg is an experimental control. Tests in California's Redwood National and State Parks found jay predation dropped up to 80 percent after these dummy eggs were set out in the forests, indicating that the jays learned to avoid the murrelet eggs after the nasty effects of the fake eggs.

Crumb clean

steller's jays, endangered species, photos of marbled murrelets

(Image credit: Portia Halbert)


Humans are a key link in helping keep Steller's jays from eating marbled murrelet eggs. The parks have a "crumb clean" program to reduce food available to jays, and lower the bird population.

Becky Oskin
Becky Oskin
Contributing Writer
Becky Oskin covers Earth science, climate change and space, as well as general science topics. Becky was a science reporter at Live Science and The Pasadena Star-News; she has freelanced for New Scientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor's degree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.