9 common bird eggs to identify

9 common bird eggs to identify

Learn how to identify common empty bird eggs with this handy guide

Published: January 8, 2024 at 12:08 pm

Eggs are nature’s miracles of packaging, often lustrous and exquisitely patterned. Once a childhood rite of passage, ‘bird nesting’ is illegal nowadays – but there’s no harm in collecting empty eggshells, says Ben Hoare

Common bird eggs to spot

Pheasant eggs

Pheasant eggs
Image credit: Getty Images


Pale brown or olive; 4.5cm
Pheasant eggs resemble small, rounded chicken eggs. Large clutches are the norm – between eight and 15 eggs is usual. There’s no nest as such, just a simple hollow in the ground

Lapwing eggs

Lapwing eggs
Image credit: Getty Images

Ochre/sand-coloured with darker markings; 4.5cm

Beautiful squiggles and blotches provide perfect camouflage for lapwing eggs in open farmland. Each nest scrape usually contains four. Traditionally the eggs were an Easter delicacy.

Woodpigeon eggs

Woodpigeon egg
Image credit: Muséum de Toulouse, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Pure white and glossy; 4cm

‘Woodies’ can produce up to three clutches of two eggs and, remarkably, manage to breed in any month of the year. Look for broken eggshells in woods and gardens.

Blackbird eggs

blackbird eggs
Image credit: getty images


Greenish with even red freckles; 3cm

These are among the most frequently found eggs, often in gardens. Blackbirds are able to raise two or three broods, with three to five eggs in each clutch. The nest cup is lined with grass.

Song thrush eggs


Pale blue with black flecks; 3cm


The female song thrush usually produces two clutches of three to five eggs, speckled in black at the broader end. Her neat cup-shaped nest is (unlike the blackbird’s) smoothly lined with mud.

Dunnock bird eggs

Dunnock Bird Nest and Blue Eggs
Image credit: Getty Images

Deep sky-blue; 2cm


Dunnock eggs look similar to those of the song thrush, but are smaller, unmarked and more intensely coloured. The female lays her clutch of four or five eggs low down in a thick hedge/bush.

Robin eggs

Robin eggs
Image credit: Getty Images


Off-white with red-brown freckles; 2cm


In a good year, female robins produce three or even four clutches, each of four to six eggs. The species is famous for nesting virtually anywhere, including sheds, garages, greenhouses and pots.

Chaffinch eggs

Image credit: Muséum de Toulouse, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Cream with red blotching; 2cm

Unusual but handsome, chaffinch eggs appear almost bloodstained. There’s a single clutch of four or five, and the neat little nest, lined with grass, moss and hair, is hidden in thick cover.

Blue tit eggs

Blue tit eggs and best close up


Off-white with red-brown freckles; 1.5cm

Similar to robin eggs, but smaller. Female blue tits lay big clutches of eight to 12 eggs in nestboxes, at the rate of one a day. They get more speckled later in the clutch.

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