Egg-xactly right - Friday's fascinations, facts and folklore

What is the right number of eggs to lay?

Photo by Woodlywonderworks

Some birds are termed determinate egg layers because they lay only a certain number of eggs and no more.  The crow, budgie, tricolored blackbird and many shorebirds are examples of determinate egg layers.  If an egg is destroyed, the parent(s) will simply tend to whatever remains.  In experiments, it is also seen that these birds do not curtail egg laying if eggs are added to the nest.

Other birds are termed indeterminate egg layers.  Three types of indeterminate egg layers are seen:

• removal indeterminacy - after  laying a clutch of eggs, if one is stolen/destroyed/removed, the female will lay another in its place.  Examples are goldeneye ducks, California quail, cockatiels, coots and of course - fowl like chicken! In one experimental case where an egg was removed every day from a Northern Flicker's nest, the female flicker laid 71 eggs in 73 days!
• addition indeterminacy, - if eggs are added to the nest in experiments, the birds layer fewer eggs than normal
• removal and addition indeterminacy - birds respond to egg removal by laying more, and respond to egg addition by layer fewer. 

Other factors obviously come into play too - for example, light levels, temperature, food supply, longevity of species, etc, etc.
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 Photo by Michelle Eve

Please don't try any experiments at home! It is illegal to remove bird's eggs from nests (Migratory Bird Treaty Act 1918).

Nesting Place

So what do the words "nesting place" mean to you? Have you found yours? That little safe place.... for nurturing, flourishing, .....a place where you can find your wings......a place to share...


The Etsy Metal Clay team is having a challenge for it's member to create a piece using hinges. I've done several jewelry pieces with hinges before, but many of the team haven't, so it's a good opportunity to try something new. Even though I've already made some hinges, I thought I'd join in...so this little piece "Nesting Place" is my challenge piece, showing a little songbird sitting on the perch of a birdhouse.

Here is the back, so you can see the hinge.


And like all good birdhouses, it does open up....


And if you peer inside ......you'll see three little eggs on a nest.


All the hinge challenge pieces will be shown on our etsy metal clay blog, so when that is up, I'll link through to it, so you can see lots of hinged jewelry!


Have a great evening in your nesting place.

Lemon treehouse

A Brewers blackbird has built a nest in one of our lemon trees.

It's been interesting to see just how protective the male blackbird is. We've been watching a couple times when a great blue heron has come to the pond (which is quite a long way from the lemon tree), and the male blackbird goes up to the heron and starts pecking at it's legs. Both times, it's managed to make the heron leave quite quickly....

Then a couple of days ago I was walking around the pond and the male blackbird came out and made lots of warning noises to me......I was beginning to feel a little threatened......so moved away before he went for my legs!

But just a minute ago, daddy was out of the scene and mummy had just left the nest so I got this quick little snap. Not sure how many babes there are in there - but they make lots of lovely little squeaks and these two are obviously hungry!


Excuse the not so brilliant photo - but I wanted to be out of there quickly!

Nesting birds

I'm busy creating some secret custom pieces at the moment so I can't show you them yet. Anyhow - I thought you might enjoy a couple of Snoopy cartoons with nesting birds! The last one is in today's paper....I suspect there may be more:















Isn't Snoopy just the cutest! His expressions are just perfect!