User:Jengod/Egging (foodway)

Egging yielded a nutritionally rich food source during the spring hungry gap, when winter food stores were near exhausted and summer abundance had not yet come to fruition.

Nest robbing is now generally considered to be deleterious to the global ecosystem but some invasivore foragers argue that bird species considered pestilential that have robust populations in human-mediated environments (e.g. seagulls, Canada geese) should be candidates for renewed seasonal egging. (Current wildlife-management protocol calls for oiling or addling the eggs of pest birds since egg removal prompts egg laying instincts, in order to replace the lost offspring.) Ground-nesting birds are generally preferred for egging, although the ground in many cases is on a bird-shit-slippery remote outcropping. Tree- or cavity-nesting birds can be egged opportunistically.

Timing is of the essence in egging for two reasons:

(1) Due to the nature of bird reproduction biology, nesting and incubating are discrete behaviors; bird eggs intended for human consumption should be harvested in the narrow window after laying but before incubating (egg sitting) begins—embryos begin to form within eggs with the application of consistent body heat and egg-rotating behaviors.

(2) In some (but by no means in all) bird species, egg removal prompts the female to lay replacement eggs. Allowing the birds to incubate the replacement eggs keeps the population at replacement levels. However, bird nesting doesn't happen willy-nilly at all times of the year, it is a specific to a place and time, mediated by migration instincts, climate, food supplies, predation pressures, etc. Pushing back incubation and hatching too late in the nesting season has deleterious long-term effects that should reasonably be avoided.
 * duck eggs
 * turkey eggs - rarely laid, double size of hen eggs, can be used in any recipe where chicken eggs are used bc flavor is same but yolk is much bigger than in chicken egg, so ratio of white to yolk is diff
 * goose eggs
 * quail eggs
 * plover eggs
 * gull eggs
 * ptarmigan eggs
 * ostrich eggs
 * pheasant eggs
 * rhea eggs
 * redshank eggs
 * Moorhen eggs
 * jackdaw eggs
 * Guinea fowl eggs
 * Pigeon eggs
 * dove Eggs
 * guillemot eggs
 * penguin eggs Falkland islands

guillemot

puffin eggs - Chef Magnus Nilsson’s book, Faviken

razorbill

peacock eggs -roman