I have lived in this house almost 11 years now. We do not have chickens and none of our neighbors have chickens even though our lots are large enough, the law allows us to have up to 4 chicken, but no roosters. It is almost a mile away to the closest neighbor who has chickens.
As I was walking the back yard today, looking for more plants to photograph, I found what appears to be a chicken egg, half buried under leaves.
It looks just like a chicken egg. It is the size of a large chicken egg, but it is not as heavy. The shell doesn't quite feel like a chicken egg. It sort of has a lightly leathery feel to it. It is solid white, but dirty.
I continued to walk around and over near the edge of the yard, I found another one. This one was laying out in the open and has almost no dirt on it.
Everything about it looks like a chicken egg to me except it doesn't quite feel like a chicken egg and is not heavy enough.
Plus there are no chickens close buy.
Birds nearby
We have 3 raptors in our area. Red Tailed Hawks, An owl that is literally nesting in one of my trees. I don't know what kind she is because I have never seen her. She only comes out at night and sits in the tree talking to me when I can't see her, and we have A LOT of buzzards. I am talking HUGE flocks of 20 or more birds that spend a lot of their time on the ground when so much as a squirrel gets ran over.
From the photo's I have found, red tailed hawk eggs are rather spotted, so that rules them out. I did find photos of buzzard eggs that are solid white, but they are more pointy than chicken eggs so that rules them out.
So either it is owl eggs or we have another raptor I have never seen in our area and it decided to drop its eggs in my backyard.
Owl eggs that didn't hatch
I wonder if it is owl eggs that didn't hatch so she pushed them out of the nest. One of the eggs was found less than 15 feet from the tree where her nest is. The other was more like 30 feet away, but it is still possible.
When I researched Owl Eggs, I saw photos of barn owl eggs, and they look exactly like the eggs I found. I don't know what kind of owl is living in my tree, but from it's sound, I have always felt it was probably a barn owl.
It could very well be some of her eggs never hatched so she pushed them out of the nest.
That is the story I am buying unless someone can tell me different
If anyone has any other ideas, I will gladly listen. But owl eggs make perfect sense with one living in my back yard. I hate it that at least two of her eggs did not hatch, but it happens sometimes.
Now I can't wait till spring gets here so I can sit out on the deck at night and see if she comes and talks to me again.