Last June, coastal bird technician Chloe St. Germain-Vermillion found herself chasing a tiny, speckled Least Tern chick through a cavernous New Orleans storage center. As the leader of a new conservation program run by 蜜柚APP Delta, she’d been keeping a keen eye on a tern colony nesting on the building’s flat roof, from which the bird had tumbled. After a slapstick scramble to catch the uninjured hatchling, she returned it to its home surrounded not by sand and sea, but by parking lots and an elevated highway. 13679 The sight of coastal birds hatching atop buildings may be incongruous, but it has become common as oceanfront development, beach recreation, and sea-level rise create a crunch in natural habitat. In Florida, Black Skimmers, American Oystercatchers, and around half of the state’s Least Terns are among the birds that opt for the high life. Gulls, terns, and shorebirds also now breed on buildings in cities such as Chicago; Seattle; Portland, Maine; and Charleston...