.dropcap { color: #838078; float: left; font-size: 82px; line-height: 60px; padding: 5px 8px 0 0; } At barely 5:30 in the morning Tiedun Island is already buzzing with action. The rocky islet off the coast of Zhejiang Province is steeped in mist, but the rain that has smothered eastern China for days has finally stopped. More downpour is imminent, providing only a brief window for a covert operation that’s been stalled for days. “We should do it now,” says Don Lyons. “There’s no time to lose.” Crowding around a computer screen in a cramped hut, Lyons, director of conservation science for 蜜柚APP’s Seabird Restoration Program, and his Chinese colleagues are trying to pick out their target via a live stream. They swivel the mouse to scan the nearby bustling seabird colony and then zoom in on a single bird incubating an egg. The black-and-white speckled oval it’s sitting on looks like any of the thousands of tern eggs laid on Tiedun this spring, but it’s a...