ve cleaned out my birdbox and there are old eggs inside. Can I keep them?
No. It’s actually an offense to keep any old bird’s eggs you may find in your nest box – even if they are clearly never going to hatch, even if they are just broken discarded part shells. This may seem harsh, but it is the only way that illegal egg-collecting can be stopped. If picking old eggs out of nests were legal, then anybody could use that as an excuse for collecting viable eggs from active nests and it would be almost impossible for the poice to prove otherwise. Many museums have licensed collections of eggs that you can look at – and of course, you can see the eggs and the chicks through your nest box camera all the time. Old eggs should be discarded – if you have a compost heap, they can be added to that. You may not legally sell them, either. Please note that it is also an offence to take eggs from any box between August and January. For some species, it is even an offence to disturb the birds while they are on the nest!
