Nesting can be dangerous, which is why it's over

Three of Ms. Bird's eggs next to a chicken egg. (Guess which is which.)

We were worried about our lovely peahen Ms. Bird spending the night on the ground sitting on her newly laid eggs. After all, Mr. Bird was 6 feet off the ground when a evil raccoon dragged him down and killed him about a year ago. There are predators out there!

So, last night at 5:30 a.m., when David awakened to Ms. Bird's squawks (didn't wake me!), we were alarmed.

Indeed, we got up and, from our dining room, shined a flashlight at the nest. No Ms. Bird. She had fled.

But there was a great big evil-looking possum approaching those big eggs. From inside, I yelled at him and he cowered, pulling back. Eventually, David got dressed and we scared the opossum away.

But there was no sign of Ms. Bird. Just a few feathers where her nest and four perfect eggs sat.

Despite the hour, we both paced the yard, searching for a sign of her. None.

Then the question: Should we take the eggs — we were 99.9% sure they were infertile — to prevent her from sitting on them for days, at the risk of her life?

We decided to take the eggs inside, where they would be safe from the opossum. We "candled" the eggs with the powerful flashlight, determining they were not fertile. Then we went back to sleep.

At 6:30 a.m., we were up. She still wasn't on the nest.

We worried about Ms. Bird and her whereabouts. A few hours later, we heard that honking/squawking noise.

Here she was — heading for her egg-less nest.

It broke our hearts to see her hunting for those missing eggs. She honked and honked. She sat on the place where they had been, then got up and looked around. ("Now where did I leave those eggs?")

It took a long time, but she eventually moved on, a broken hearted mother. But she was behaving instinctively. She couldn't know that the eggs would never hatch into chicks and she would have risked her life sitting on them for 28 days or more.

Meanwhile, these enormous peafowl eggs are now in our fridge.

David says: Make am omelet. They were not fertile, and it is a sin to waste them.

I'm not sure yet.