A real-life mini egg
There is an abandoned blackbird nest in my garden. I was surprised to see that it contained one very undersized egg alongside the normal ones. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the size and darkness of the eggs. They get darker as they get smaller, as though the brown pigment is added at the beginning of the egg production process.
Alan Dixon, via email
Charles Deeming replies:
Bird eggs normally contain yolk and albumen surrounded by a hard shell. The small egg was certainly built around a very small yolk released prematurely from the ovary, but it still stimulated the bird’s oviduct to deposit some albumen and shell around it. The browner colour may reflect more deposition of the protoporphyrin IX pigment, normally spread more widely on the eggshell.
Threat to the Red Sea
I was shocked to read about FSO Safer and by the international inertia surrounding this sad story (My way of thinking, April 2021). I, and no doubt many other concerned
environmentalists, were simply unaware of this situation.
It is not that one does not care, but poor communications have not informed the wider world opinion. We have had stories like this in the past where nothing positive has developed. It shows that the UN does not have much power to intervene. Perhaps when oil lubricates Saudi Arabia’s coastline she will cease fighting a war with Yemen and clean up this mess. Norman Marshall, Llandudno Junction