View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - NEW SEASON, NEW LIFE

NEW SEASON, NEW LIFE

Have you finished all your Easter eggs yet? I know that this celebration of new life was only a couple of weeks ago so some of you might still have a chocolaty treat or two lying around but I bet most of you have snarfed them up long ago. There are certainly none left in my house.

Easter may now be a full calendar page behind us but most birds in the natural world are yet to move on to the business of egg laying. Many of them are still in the courtship stage of their relationships but there have been a few early starters. I've already seen a few fluffy chicks around and it's always a lovely sight. For example, the baby Mallards don't mess about with that “helpless in the nest” malarkey. They are up and active from day one, following their mothers across the water like little wind-up balls of fluff, too buoyant to even duck under the surface until they've put on a few grammes. They're guaranteed to bring a smile to my face. Hopefully, yours too.

So forget the chocolate eggs, the real thing is much more impressive. All birds lay eggs. It's a defining characteristic of being a bird. And these magical ovoid packages contain everything that the embryo needs to grow from fertilised cell to peeping ball of fluffy cuteness. Mother bird just needs to keep it dry and add the heat of her body until it's time for the youngster to make a break for freedom.

Each species' egg has perfectly evolved over many thousands of years to supply just as much protection and nutrition as its resident chick needs to survive until hatching. Nature doesn't waste anything, so there isn't any more foodstuff than the chick requires. And of course, any less and the baby bird wouldn't survive. As always, nature provides all things in balance.

Eggs are perfect for the job they do but I have real trouble understanding how birds manage to paint them in so many different colours. The speckles surely require a paintbrush? That's difficult for wings to brandish. And if we've established that no bird can make blue pigment for their feathers (see my UP ABOVE THE STREETS AND HOUSES blog for the mind-blowing details) then how can some, like Dunnocks or Blackbirds, create blue eggs? Egg colouration is a dark art that's lost on me. Let's just say that most of the ones that are visible to predators are camouflaged in some way, and the ones that spend their early days in a nest tucked away in a tree or a bush are usually some kind of blue or green; they're the colours of sky and leaves. That's as far as my understanding goes. My head hurts. All I know is that the thickness and strength of the shell are a perfect balance between being tough enough to protect its little passenger but thin enough for that precious chick to be able to break out once it's big and healthy enough to survive outside.

I'm on safer scientific ground once we dig inside the egg shell. The embryonic bird is encased in the yellow or orange yolk of the egg. This yolk contains just enough fats and proteins for the embryo to grow and develop into a fully formed chick, ready to meet the harsh realities of life as a tiny bird. The yolk contains antibodies too, to give the chick some protection against the outside world's diseases.

Surrounding the yolk is the albumen or the white of the egg. This is one of nature's greatest antibacterial products. Not only does it protect the growing chick from germs and other tiny nasties but it also cushions the embryo against movement within the egg. Think of it as foam rubber or a series of springs. That yellow yolk sac is fragile and the baby won't survive without it so it needs as much protection as the shell and albumen can give it.

And once the chick bursts the egg sac and attempts to chip its way out of its shell cell, there's a welcoming bubble that contains just enough air to give a healthy chick time to make a break for freedom. Once again, it's just enough. There's no waste. There can't afford to be. With that in mind, remember that most little-to-mid-sized birds (think ducks and smaller) lay more eggs than are actually required to maintain their gene pool and population numbers. I know, we all love the cutesy wutesy ikkle wikkle chickies, but the truth is that this overpopulation is a much-needed natural event. Not to paint too grisly a picture, but many carnivores and omnivores rely upon this seasonal abundance of protein to survive, just as many birds need the springtime glut of caterpillars or flying insects. Other birds and mammals are the main predators of eggs and their contents but large fish too will take a chick down into the depths, and their stomachs. All of this predation is not bad or nasty. It's beyond that, beyond good and evil. It just is. It's nature at its most natural. And if we love watching a Blue Tit grow from chick to adult on that diet of caterpillers, then we must love the Sparrowhawk that takes some of those same chicks back for her own babies to grow too.

So that's my egg blog. Perhaps it will make you appreciate these shelled wonders a little more? I hope so, but I can't believe I've made it this far without making any eggstremely eggscrutiating puns. Sometimes I even crack myself up. The yolk's on me. Perhaps Old Moor should shell out for a funnier blogger.