Gardener Notices Tiny Eggs in Their Bird Bath — Now Fellow Birders Issue Warning to Remove Them
Gardens are always brimming with life. With rapid urbanization taking over the world, gardens and small yards have become an asylum for a variety of animals and birds. When a gardener was strolling through their garden, they noticed a strange phenomenon in their bird bath. There were dozens of tiny eggs laid inside the bird bath. The eggs were submerged in water with no animal or lizard to be spotted nearby. Clueless about its origins, the gardener asked for help on Reddit (u/EmuDood) and might have gotten an answer.
“What just laid eggs in my bird bath?” the gardener asked in the viral post with 1,200 votes. In the photo, nine eggs lie still in the bird bath. People rushed to the comments to warn the gardener and discuss the possibility of it being snake or lizard eggs. One person (u/LongTimeLurker818) said, “I see a lot of snakes here. I’ll go out on a limb and say Lizard. But it looks to be some kind of reptile for sure. Kind of an odd thing to lay them there, though.” Additionally, they suggested a method to check whether the eggs were fertilized with a flashlight.
“You can take a flashlight to the back of one and look for a zygote. It’s called candle lighting, but I would use a flashlight instead,” the note stated. Many people agreed with the commenter’s conjecture about lizard eggs. Meanwhile, another (u/psilome) predicted all the possibilities that could have landed the eggs inside the bird bath. “Reptiles reproduce internally and lay eggs with shells on dry land. I think these got in there accidentally, or maybe were laid in the bird bath when dry, and it filled with rain water, or maybe even dropped in there when a bird or other animal had a lunch of a gravid female reptile on the birdbath,” their comment said.
A deleted user’s comment suggested that it could be snake eggs since it is hard to tell the difference from lizard eggs. “If you are really curious, you should measure them; less than one inch is most likely a lizard, and above one inch is most likely a snake,” the comment shared. In order to know for sure, some people advised him to pick out the eggs and cover them with loose soil to make them hatch.
“Crows will sometimes take eggs and leave them in water like that- I know of some local crows that do this with lizard eggs at our community garden!” shared u/arr-jay-h on a different note. While u/PrinceRobotVI joked, “Your bird bath is pregnant. Soon there will be a whole litter of bird baths. Isn’t nature wonderful?” The gardener will likely have to wait and see who the eggs really belong to, or simply discard them to ensure the well-being of the local birds who feed on the water. Nevertheless, it is important for homeowners and gardeners to be vigilant about the state of their bird bath, as it may affect the local wildlife of the region through the rapid spread of diseases.