The most perfect thing – inside and outside a bird’s egg by Tim Birkhead

 

Published by Bloomsbury Hardback

 

£16.99

 

Pages 288            ISBN 978 1 4088 5125 8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This book came about due to a debate on just one egg – the guillemot. Does it roll around on a cliff ledge or is that just an illusion! Fortunately the book is about a lot more than that and covers so many questions with some still to be answered like how many microbes are attacking each egg and how is the egg defending itself? What is really the white of the egg? Colours shapes and size with the smallest often beating the largest in several ways.  There is the effect of DDT and the egg collectors with so many collections even adding to the story. There are even stories of the individual collectors before the hobby was banned by law. This is a book to absorb even the most knowledgeable of bird watchers and make you look at even the hen’s egg in a different light when you crack it into a pan. Tim Birkhead has done it again. Well done lad