HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Some 3,000 elegant tern eggs were abandoned at a Southern California nesting island after a drone crashed and scared off the birds.

The Orange County Register says two drones were flown illegally over the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach in May and one of them went down in the wetlands. Fearing an attack from a predator, several thousand terns abandoned their ground nests.

Now during the month when the white birds would be overseeing their eggs as they begin to hatch, the sand is littered with egg shells.

Authorities are ramping up enforcement and citing people who break the rules.