I live in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, near the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. I have a pile of hardwood bark mulch that I have not disturbed since it was delivered from the nursery about 6 weeks ago. Today I was scooping up some mulch with my tractor and spreading it from the tractor loader with a pitchfork and I found this egg (attached picture) in the loader bucket. The egg is white and is 3 3/4" long. It is intqact except for some small cracks and one small missing piece of shell - the internal membrane is intact. I could feel no movement in the egg but it is fairly weighty so it isn't empty.
Can anyone give me any idea what kind of bird/animal might lay a 3 3/4" egg in a mulch pile in northeastern West Virginia?? [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]
I also exchanged e-mails with an ornithologist from University of Maryland yesterday and she agrees, the most likely conclusion is that it is an unusually large egg from a Canada Goose that either was brought to my mulch pile by some other animal or the goose nested in the mulch pile at the nursery and the egg got delivered (no extra charge [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] ) with my 8 yards of mulch.
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