Under cover of darkness: Refuge from artificial light at night may mitigate risks to stranded seabirds

Artificial light at night is an anthropogenic pollutant that has wide-ranging effects on wildlife. Fledgling seabirds of order Procellariiformes exhibit phototaxis toward artificial lights on their first flights from the nest, causing them to become grounded in human settlements, where they are subject to increased predation risk. Limited evidence suggests certain light types may be less attractive than others, yet there is also evidence for an aversion to light under certain circumstances. We investigated differences in phototactic behaviour, activity level, and shelter-seeking behaviour of grounded Hydrobates leucorhous (Leach’s storm-petrel) fledglings exposed to artificial light in three experiments: a Y-maze choice experiment, an open field test, and a modified open field test with a hide box provided (“Safe Haven test”). When provided with combinations of different light types in the Y-maze, storm-petrels typically remained stationary in the darkest parts of the apparatus (farthes..., , , # Under cover of darkness: Refuge from artificial light at night may mitigate risks to stranded seabirds

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3r3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.47d7wm3r3)

## Description of the data and file structure

We conducted three experiments, all with the overarching goal of studying behavioural responses of stranded fledgling Leach's Storm-Petrels (*Hydrobates leucorhous*) to artificial light in various contexts. There are thus three comma-delimited spreadsheet files available, one for each experiment, plus one additional comma-delimited file containing data used to create and apply a conversion factor to some of the data in one of our experiments (see description of \"petrel-openfield-audiovisual.csv\", below). The first experiment involved placing individuals in a Y-maze choice experiment with various combinations of two different artificial light types and quantifying the number of birds that responded to each type, specifically assessing any preferences for ...