More than a million sooty terns spend the breeding season in the Seychelles, a bird paradise safe from natural predators. Yet their hungry young must contend with a host of survival challenges from the air, land and sea. Meals depend on food-bearing parents avoiding the prying eyes and beaks of jealous frigatebirds. The environmental scourge of microplastics is also proving fatal to these vulnerable chicks. And fledglings face an entirely different threat that rises unseen from the ocean depths.