Why Are Birds’ Eggs of Different Colors?
This is a wise provision of nature to help the mother birds hide her eggs away from the eyes of her enemies. In the animal kingdom every kind of life is the natural prey of some other kind of animal. A bird will have enemies which try to catch her as food. A bird cannot fight back, so must fly away when danger threatens, in order to save her life. This means that she must leave the eggs in the nest for the time being. At certain times she must also leave her nest and search for food for herself. In order that the eggs so left alone may have a better chance of not being discovered, nature has arranged matters so that the eggs take the color very much of the surroundings in which they are laid. Eggs of some birds are spotted or look like pebbles, because the mother bird lays them in the sand. Some of them are green, almost the color of the materials from which the bird builds the nest, and so the colors have a real, and to the birds, a valuable purpose.