Ittle Bitty

Two nights ago, it was raining buckets.  I decided to transfer my porch hanging flower baskets to the sidewalk and let mother nature water them.  I was surprised when a bird flew out at me, but it was dark and i was in a hurry to not get rained on.  The next afternoon, when it had stopped raining, I realized why there was a bird in my flowers in the middle of the night.

ugh, I cant believe this new format has the same rotation problems as the old one!

I had scared off the mother, completely moved the eggs and let them get rained on for 18ish hours.  Oops.  Monitored for momma to come back.  She didnt.  Surprised anyone?  Considered trying to get the chickens to adopt the eggs, but they've been sitting cold for some time, none of the chickens are broody and a fb friend pointed out that the hens would have no idea how to feed them by regurgitation, should they actually manage to hatch them.

It was then that I came to the conclusion that may or may not have been crazy.  Why not eat the little buggers? Afterall, I've eaten duck and goose eggs and pretty much any egg is edible (good thing cuz i had no idea what kind they were)... and we eat lots of wild animal flesh in this house and it should be just as safe.

Step one: The water test (this works with any egg, FYI)
Float it in water.  If it sinks immediately and stands upright, it's very fresh.  If it hesitates a tad but sinks, then its safe to eat.  If it floats, it's bad news!!!

All 5 of them sunk, with varying degrees of hesitation.

Step two: candling
aka: hold them up to the light to make sure you aren't getting a little birdie

The one in the pic above is good but one of them wasn't .  Sorry I couldn't get a better pic of that one.  I fed it to the chickens.  They REALLY love eggs, but thankfully never eat their own unless there's something wrong with it.

step 3: visual inspection

that pretty much the cutest little yolk ever?

I broke them each into little bowls separately to make sure they looked alright, then combined them into one bowl.  One egg didn't survive it's cracking.  And then there were 3.

step 4: cook!

One birdie egg next to the rest of my breakfast.  You didn't think 3 eggs the size of my nail would really cut it, did you?

Having seen quail eggs cooked on food network, I decided to fry one side of the eggs.  Quail eggs are so small that no flipping is necessary to cook the white through.  Why shouldn't these guys be the same?

The white didn't cook up quite like the white of a regular egg, it stayed semi-clear, even while the bottom was browning.  It freaked me out, so i flipped it...thus over-cooking the yolk.  Prolly best anyways, you really shouldn't eat underdone wild items.

In the end, it tasted just like any other egg...only WAY smaller.  The end.