There was now half an egg with some yolk in it. Having had his fill he left some of the egg shell with yolk in it and flew off. I could also see that he was eating something solid, which could only be some of the eggshell. The male crow was already there and had broken the egg and was scooping up the content of the egg. I put an egg, on its own, on the table and watched from my lounge to see what happened. Two minutes after leaving the egg I looked at the table. So, with the next egg I decided to watch all day to see what actually happened. This was not complete proof that it was the Carrion Crows taking the shell as I had not actually seen them do it. Days later another egg, on its own, was placed on the table and this too disappeared by the next morning.I do not know if it was taken by the Carrion Crows as I did not watch all day, but it was within the area they normally dominated. By next day, all the egg including the shell had completely gone. I next placed an egg five meters away in some grass 10cm in height. ![]() A few days later I repeated the exercise with the same result.By next day, all the egg and food had gone. First, I put out a hen’s egg with normal food scraps.When we started the Curlew project, I understood that a fox would take all the eggs away leaving no signs, and that a Carrion Crow would eat the eggs on the spot and so leave some eggshell behind, thus telling us what was predating the nest.Īfter last year’s mystery over what had predated our fenced-off Curlew nest where the eggs vanished, but there was no sign of any fox track in the long grass, I decided to carry out an experiment with my Carrion Crows to see what they would do if I gave them a whole egg.
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