Skip to main content Skip to navigation
Home
Today's Show: Spider Silk - Duct Tape for Bird Nests
Hummingbird sitting on its tiny nest built of plant material held together with spider's silk
Listen In
  • Today's Show
  • Listen
    • BirdNote Daily
    • Bring Birds Back
    • Threatened
    • BirdNote Presents
    • Sound Escapes
    • How to Listen
  • Explore
    • Field Notes
    • Sights & Sounds
    • Birdwatching
    • Resources for Educators
  • How to Help Birds
    • At Home
    • In Your Community
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • The Team
    • Board Members
    • DEI/IDEA Commitment
    • Partners
    • For Radio Stations
    • Funding
    • FAQs
    • Support BirdNote
  • Donate

Egg-laying 101

June 8, 2010
Listen Now
Subscribe
  • Share This:
  • Share to Facebook
  • Share to Twitter
  • Share to Email
Pied-billed Grebe Expand Image
© Paul Bannick

Birds' eggs range in size from the tiny hummingbird egg to the eight-inch egg of the Ostrich. Swifts lay only one or two eggs. Ducks may lay as many as 16 and don't begin to incubate until all eggs are laid, so all the eggs hatch about the same time. Incubation can take as few as 11 days to as many as 11 weeks.
Pictured here: a Pied-billed Grebe's nest. You can learn more about Pied-billed Grebes at All About Birds.

Sign up for Weekly Preview, to receive photos and summaries of next week's shows. Click here to sign up!

  • Full Transcript
  • Credits

BirdNote®

Egg-Laying 101

Written by Frances Wood.

This is BirdNote!
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? We’ll probably never know, but we do know that all birds come from eggs, and that laying and incubating eggs is serious business for wild birds.
[Bird song with American Robin and Swainson’s Thrush featured]
Have you ever noticed a robin’s sky-blue eggshell alongside a path or in your garden? Perhaps you picked it up and marveled at its graceful shape and memorable color. Birds’ eggs range in size from the jellybean-like hummingbird egg to the eight-inch Ostrich egg.
Some birds, such as swifts and albatrosses, lay only one or two eggs. Ducks and quail may lay as many as sixteen. The female lays one egg per day until the clutch is complete. And the parents wait for the entire clutch to be laid before they begin incubating. That’s so all the eggs will hatch about the same time – a process that can take as few as 11 days to as many as 11 weeks.
When ready, the chick pecks its way out, the eggshell falls away, and the miracle of life begins anew.
[Song of the American Robin]
Would you like to receive stunning photos each week of the birds we’ll feature in the week ahead? If so, come to birdnote.org and sign up on the link entitled “Weekly Preview.” For BirdNote, I’m Frank Corrado.
###
Song of the American Robin and Swainson’s Thrush provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. American Robin recorded by W.L. Hershberger, Swainson’s Thrush by G.A. Keller.
Ambient tracks provided by C. Peterson.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2010 Tune In to Nature.org        June 2010

ID#060205eggsKPLU         egg-01-FCr

Frances Wood
Writer
Frank Corrado
Narrator
Paul Bannick
Photographer
Tags: nesting

Related Resources

Learn more about Pied-billed Grebes at All About BirdsStart here to sign up for Weekly Previews

Related Field Notes

September 18, 2019

Nesting Marsh Wren

By Gregg Thompson
Male Marsh Wrens will build several--as many fifteen--dome shaped shells in the reeds to woo fema
June 20, 2019

Great Blue Heron nest - it's getting crowded!

By Gregg Thompson
This Great Blue Heron nest is bursting with life!

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

Support BirdNote

  • About
  • Annual Report
  • Contact
  • Science Advisory Council
  • Pitch Page
  • Sights & Sounds
Sign up for our newsletter!
  • BirdNote on Facebook
  • BirdNote on Twitter
  • BirdNote on Instagram

Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy