Yesterday (August 6) was also a hard-raining day where my co-workers working outside were completely drenched when they entered the office. Yikes. Thankfully, I was indoors all day yesterday.
My co-worker had been paying attention to a particular nest outside of TBG because he had not saw the barbet parents returning and incubating their three eggs. Two days had past and still no signs of parents coming back. It is very likely that the eggs are all dead now (especially with the rainy weather), so we decided to take action and saw off parts of the tree branch and bring the eggs out.
While it was raining hard out, they painstakingly took 80 minutes to saw off the nest opening piece by piece and finally took out the eggs.
When they brought them back into the office and we smell them, the eggs were indeed all bad. It is surprising to see the size of the small eggs (measured at about 3-cm long and 2-cm wide). While trying to preserving them, I accidentally cracked one of the eggs and yolk immediately flowed out.
Holding the cracked against the light, we saw a dark shape at the side of the egg. It was an embryo of a Muller's Barbet.
Holding a small dead embryo between my fingers brought strange feelings and thoughts to me. It made me realize how small and fragile these protective eggs are, as well as the life inside them. How unforeseen causes can decide death and life of anything and anyone, and how special a life is from a developing egg to a beautiful individual.I do not know what other people's reactions are when holding such a precious thing in your hands, but it certainly made me value life even more, and that's the truth.
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