For reasons that I've never been able to fathom, hot-cross buns have been available throughout the year for decades and not just at Easter as once was the case.

Furthermore, bunnies and eggs in great variety colour and flavours appeared in the shops just after Christmas. But that's modern marketing for you!

A real bird's egg is a remarkable structure and comes in a multitude of shapes and camouflaged colour patterns. For example,  guillemots nest on very narrow cliff edges so their eggs are very tapered, elongated and pear shaped so if accidentally knocked, the egg revolves right round on its axis thus remaining in place and not rolling off the ledge into the sea.

In complete contrast, the egg of a tawny owl is rounded and plain white for being laid in a tree hole it will not roll anywhere and has no need to be camouflaged in a dark recess. The same applies to the white almost spherical egg of a kingfisher that nests in a long dark bankside tunnel.

An egg may appear fragile but it can absorb some punishment. Nevertheless, when sitting incubating or walking around its scrape of a nest site, a peregrine falcon instinctively clenches each foot tightly in order to conceal their sharp lethal talons which might  otherwise pierce an egg under the birds.

After a fledgling has hatched, adult birds normally carry the shell away and discard it. If we spot exactly half an eggshell intact on the ground then we know that the youngster hatched successfully but if the eggshell is broken irregularly or shattered, then it was probably predated.