A mother bird already sees her eggs as her children and if you know anything about birds and their children you’ll know that a mother bird will do anything to ensure that her children are sage and taken care of
So, why do birds break their eggs if you touch them? this article looks into it
Why do birds break their eggs if you touch them?
The thought of a mother bird breaking her eggs if you touch them seems so foreign and unnatural, that’s because it is, mother birds don’t actually break their eggs if you touch them.
A mother bird can’t tell that you have touched her eggs if she doesn’t actually see you touching her eggs.
The mother bird can’t “sense” that you’ve touched her eggs, and she can’t smell that you’ve touched her eggs either. In fact, birds don’t have that good a sense of smell so they definitely won’t be able to smell a human on her eggs
What birds do have is a good sense of sight, if a mother bird sees you touching her eggs then she may be unhappy with you and wait for you to leave before getting back to her eggs, or she may abandon her eggs altogether.
Birds are quite small compared to humans, birds are also very low on the food chain and birds know this.
These little animals see you as a predator so if they see you touching their eggs then they may abandon the nest and eggs out of fear for their life. These birds will leave their eggs to be taken by you.
Longer-lived birds, like hawks and eagles, know that they can start a new nest and lay more eggs if they decide to abandon their eggs and nest
However not all birds will abandon their eggs, some will become protective and will wait for you to leave before getting back to their eggs.
Short-lived birds, like songbirds and sparrows, are under pressure to raise their baby birds until the birds can take care of themselves.
These birds do this because the parent sparrow and songbird may not have the opportunity to procreate again so they will choose to take the risk of going back to their eggs once the predator (you) has left.
If you think that a nest is abandoned, don’t immediately try to take the baby birds or eggs to a wildlife rehabilitation center. The parent bird may simply be away looking for food, or waiting for you to leave the eggs so that it can get back to its eggs.
Allow the bird to come back and let the nest and the eggs be.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other duck related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Ducks Picking On Another Duck, Can You Get Sick From Touching A Baby Bird?, When To Take Ducklings From Their Mother