The Case Of The Abandoned Baby Bird

Yesterday I noticed an eggshell on my yard. This isn’t unusual as there are many birds nesting this time of year. What was unusual was that, on closer inspection, a live baby bird was actually still inside the shell. Stranger still was that no trees were in the area that could contain a nest from which an egg could potentially fall from.

American robins begin breeding in April. The eggs are blue and about an inch in length. Only about 40 percent of all nests produce healthy robins. So, there’s a good chance that all of the eggs won’t develop into healthy young birds. Of course, if a predator should disrupt the nest in any way a robin can usually sense this and not return to the nest or dispose of the eggs.

Robins also have a great sense for knowing when their offspring are healthy or not. They’ll dispose of the eggs in some way so that the eggs don’t go rotten. Egg disposal is common, but usually this happens before the young begin hatching. So the mystery remains as to why a mother bird would give up on a bird attempting to emerge from its shell.