Accident?

 I am getting a lot of inquiries about the egg on the Arboretum cam nest that is on the outer edge…here is what I shared with the Arboretum folks about all this. People have jumped to an a conclusion that the female chose to reject that egg and I dont think thats actually what happened.

When I watched that video I thought it was actually an accident. She started to roll the egg, which is normal behavior but the nest has been so damaged by storms that the egg hit a slope and rolled to the edge of the nest. They can’t pick up an egg and return it….and it’s pretty hard to roll it back uphill when all you have is a beak. She settled on the remaining egg and kept looking at the other egg….like it concerned her, but she didn’t know what to do about it. It was also very windy when she was trying to roll the egg. I don’t think she actually meant to reject an egg….it was stormy and she was trying to roll an egg and it just didnt go well, partly because of the state of the nest. Usually they are rolling an egg in a soft grassy cup in the nest, that sort of contains it, and it doesn’t roll away like that.

The nest base has decomposed so it’s really just dirt….and the sticks they have added are not getting anchored in anything so they blow off after every storm. And the dirt base is not flat, so it looks like the nest edge drops off slightly….which caused the egg to roll to the edge.

Its sad, but ya know….shit happens. Storms, damaged nests, etc…But life goes in and many nests are hatching and today I actually saw my first chick! They are usually too small to see for at least 1-2 weeks, and I saw one tiny head during a feeding….just briefly before it fell over, as they do!