Surprising Design of a Bird's Egg
Sitting in the apartment and looking at the porch outside, we see our feathered customers at the bird feeders. Sometimes they get a mite contentious, and other times we see them taking the food and feeding each other. Downy woodpeckers and their cousins the nuthatches stop by to remind us that they're cute. Blue jays like peanuts, and the red-bellied woodpecker stops by for a snack on his way home from work. It's funny to watch the tufted titmouse carry off a peanut. They all have many things in common, and one of those is that they hatched out of eggs. Credit: Unsplash / Soner Eker Most of us know that eggs are in the nest (with the startling exception of the malleefowl ), the young develop and eventually hatch. Research reveals that the Master Engineer designed the egg itself to provide for the hatchling-in-waiting. Eggs have a great deal of calcium, but the chick needs it. So, the shell provides the necessary ingredient, softening in the process for the inhabitant'