Confessions of an egg snatcher

April is nesting season and with it comes egg collectors, an illegal band of very specialised and, in some ways, very British of criminals. Many would consider themselves wildlife enthusiasts. Most see their crime as a hobby, ignoring the effects of stealing a clutch of eggs and thus accelerating the species decline in a particular location. The thieves are certainly expert birders; they are able to recognise the nests of particular birds and know when to attempt their raids and where best to launch their raids.

But though knowledgeable, they are despised across the birding community. The thieves themselves are not just ornithological anoraks. Some use social media to share information and brag about their daring, descending cliff faces like the man in black delivering Milk Tray (for those who remember the ads). There have been injuries and even deaths during these nest raids.

There is often little reward. Older egg snatchers know not to exhibit their collections, keeping them neatly labelled and stored in secret. Police raids have uncovered vast arrays of eggs in basements and cellars, out of sight from fellow collectors.

The crime of disturbing nests may have declined with tougher sentences – including prison terms – but there was a time when egg collecting was seen as a regular country pursuit. As a young boy, my parents would take me and my brothers away from our East London home to spend much of the summer at my grandmother’s pub in rural Staffordshire. Some of the regulars at The Red Lion in Cotes Heath would encourage my growing interest in the countryside by taking me fishing or to watch the local pack of foxhounds being exercised. When my parents bought me The Observer’s Book of Bird Eggs (for those who remember them, Observer’s books were pocket sized volumes on subjects as diverse as steam locomotives to old English churches) the locals started bringing me bird eggs.

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I marvelled at the sizes, shapes and colours of these delicate objects which introduced me to species of birds from pipits to peregrines. I was too young to appreciate the damage it caused to breeding but it did nurture my interests. There are many conservationists who started off collecting eggs before realising the error of their ways. Nowadays there is such a thing as the National Wildlife Crime Unit, which runs Operation Easter so that police can share information about egg snatchers.

Despite the decline of cottage collectors, there are growing numbers of those who seek out the eggs of birds of prey. These are then hatched for chicks and sold on for falconry at a healthy sum. Police say this is an expanding market overseas, particularly the Middle East. Funny to think that somewhere in the Arabian deserts is a peregrine falcon, bought by some shady sheikh for an exorbitant fee, that’s a distant cousin of those Staffordshire eggs I had as a boy.