Last night we were working in the yard as a family when one of the children spotted something hidden in a clump of weeds…
A bird’s nest, about 8 inches in diameter, on the ground.
The five eggs were lightly speckled. One guess is quail, but all the pictures I’ve seen of quail eggs are more mottled than these eggs were. I haven’t noticed any quail in the yard this year, either, although I often see them running across the road about 2 blocks away. We wondered if it could be a dove’s nest, since they sometimes nest on the ground and are unafraid of nesting around humans. We’ve seen a lot of doves this year and can hear them all the time. I’ve never seen dove eggs, though, and all the online pictures I’ve researched show dove eggs to be white in color with no speckles.
So, if you know what kind of eggs these are, please share! (DAD?) Lately I have this insatiable interest in birds. I’m seriously considering purchasing a pair of binoculars for bird watching.
As we all gathered and peered at the eggs, showing them to the children and taking pictures, there were no agitated birds trying to warn us off. (This was not so for my 11 year old daughter who thought that climbing into a tree to watch a mother bird and her babies would be a lot of fun until they all started chirping at her. The birds were so agitated that it frightened her and she panicked, forgetting how to climb out of the tree. She had to be rescued with a ladder!)
We’re starting a landscaping project, so the nest had to be moved or it would be destroyed. We carefully relocated it with a shovel and are hoping that the eggs aren’t abandoned!
As with the children’s book I shared last week, I love this piece of land we live on. As we all stood gathered last night, marveling at more of God’s handiwork, I thought, “Where else does a nest filled with eggs make all the difference in the world?”
Isn’t it a wonderful thing to experience things as a family?
Hopeful Homemaker
