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Eggs in grass - which bird?

  • 10-05-2009 6:26pm
    #1
    rediguana
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,312 ✭✭✭


    I moved into a new place a few weeks back and I only got around to cutting the grass today, which was about 18 inches high. It's in rural Cork.

    Anyway, twice I unfortunately stepped on a bird egg (two different locations) that were dug into the earth, hidden at the base of the grass. Obviously the eggs broke and I guess that's the end of the poor chicks. I stopped cutting then, I'll leave it for a few more weeks. (Any excuse, sez the missus).

    What type of bird is it likely to be? There was no nest, per se. Eggs just dug into soil, covered about 4/5 of the way up. Quite large, not much smaller than an egg that you'd crack onto your pan.

    Anyone know the likely species?


Comments

  • #2
    liah
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,750 ✭✭✭liah


    Some kind of pheasant or moorhen I'd wager?


  • #3
    Call me Socket
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 527 ✭✭✭Call me Socket


    They sound like big eggs.....and in the ground instead of in a tree?.... my guess is Velociraptor:D


  • #4
    rediguana
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,312 ✭✭✭rediguana


    Thanks. Is the second one some class of dinosaur?!

    Anyway, since I posted, I picked up two dead baby magpies on the road. They were beside each other. What would explain this? Two siblings too juvenile and green to move in time when a car came along?

    I threw them into a field. Hopefully a sparrowhawk will come along before long.

    Bad day for the birds.


  • #5
    Wolfsberg
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 233 ✭✭Wolfsberg


    Could the eggs belong to a corncrake?!... If there's any possibility that they may be, make sure you don't step on any more of them as they are very very threatened... even if it means leaving the grass grow for the summer.

    Magpies hang around roadways as they eat carrion (road kill). During warmer times of year the roadkill "goes off" very quickly and the carrion-eaters become ill, mostly with botulism, and then in turn die or become slower and get hit by cars more frequently.

    Hope this may help.


  • #6
    Call me Socket
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 527 ✭✭✭Call me Socket


    rediguana wrote: »
    Thanks. Is the second one some class of dinosaur?!
    Yeah....just taking the p1sssmiley9.gif


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  • #7
    rediguana
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,312 ✭✭✭rediguana


    Wolfsberg wrote: »
    Could the eggs belong to a corncrake?!... If there's any possibility that they may be, make sure you don't step on any more of them as they are very very threatened... even if it means leaving the grass grow for the summer.

    QUOTE]

    I don't think it's corncrake as they lay from late May through June usually, and populations are pretty-much restricted to the north of the country, as far as I know.

    Don't they need to be by rivers or lakes too? I have a pond with fish in it, but I haven't seen any larger birds around it yet.


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