[Tweeters] Canada Goose eggs already?

[Gary Bletsch]

Dear Tweeters,
Today, the seventh of March, there was an egg lying on the path at Barnaby Slough, near Rockport in Skagit County. I think this has to be the earliest spring date on which I've found an egg of a wild bird. I suppose that this could have been the egg of a barnyard fowl that had been carried here a kilometer or two, but I doubt that. 
Canada Geese breed there at Barnaby, and there were 15 of them present today, although none were on a nest. Most of them were chasing one another around and making a lot of noise. The egg looked like a Canada Goose egg; it was lying on the middle of a track in the forest. It had been pecked open by something, presumably a predator. Oddly enough, I had just been reading yesterday about telltale signs that can reveal which critters are taking eggs from henhouses. According to the book I was reading, jays and crows tend to peck open an egg and leave it, but sometimes will carry an egg some distance away. I would assume that a Raven would behave in a similar manner.
Is this not an early date for eggs?
Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch

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