It’s Good Friday, so it seems only appropriate to give you a nest with some mystery eggs to identify:
Hope you have an eggselent Easter!
Zygoma
Adventures in natural history collections
It’s Good Friday, so it seems only appropriate to give you a nest with some mystery eggs to identify:
Hope you have an eggselent Easter!
Zygoma 
Speckled. Probably less than 2 cms long. Conventional nest. Hmmm…
A bit larger than my first guess, which included cream thieves. More hmmm…
Sweet! And so small! Looks like a grassland bird, and tiny – could it be a what my sons used to call a “hopper grass” sparrow nest?
I’m definitely thinking it’s a passer…
With the speckles, I was wondering about a certain red-breasted Christmas bird, but I’m not sure that the speckles are exactly the right colour ponders
somewhat tangential: is there an observed ratio of egg size/clutch size and interior diameter of nest? this nest looks large for the eggs within.
I wondered that and many of the nest pics I saw were far more packed. But there was a genus for which this seemed the right number-size ratio.
If I am correct, this looks like the bird which last attempted breeding locally, Surrey Hants border, in 1955. The nest was raided by a cat and is now in our museum collection. It has a connection to Royal Bank of Scotland.
Although their breeding numbers have decreased, there are records of breeding pairs for this species from Hampshire well after 1955.
I was being a bit very parochial I’m afraid. Our Camberley Natural History Society had a visit to the local sewage works especially to see the nesting bird. This was a favourite place to explore for wildlife but now it is mostly under a dual carriageway.
If I am correct, this is a bird which last attempted to breed locally, Surrey Hants border, in 1955. Its nest was raided by a cat and is now in our museum collection. It as a connection to Royal Bank of Scotland.
Clearly it’s the nest of the Lesser Easter Bunny.
Er – Bunting. Lesser Easter Bunting.
Clearly passerine/songbird eggs. Size, shape and coloration suggest northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) but the pattern of speckles and splotches isn’t quite right. I suppose this is a Eurasian species, so that would be rather outside of my experience.
It is indeed a Eurasian species – sorry!
the nest looks like it’s made of meadow grass – there is even a piece with the root attached. Larks, I think, pull out grass like that – perhaps a lark nest, although it’s so small?
I don’t think either platypus or echidna eggs are speckled (though in a nest they can easily get dirt spots), and I don’t think their pointy end is as pronouncedly more pointed than their round end as is the case with the eggs in the photo. (For that matter, do either platypoda or echidna build grass nests like then shown?) So, since I only try to guess your mammalian specimens, I’m opting out on this one.
(Happy Easter to all, though!)