In the depths of winter a friend who lives up the road remarked that she had found an egg in her front garden.

“A bit late in the year for that” I commented.

“No, it’s a hen’s egg. When I first saw it, it was half buried in the ground. The next day it was covered with bits of moss, and the day after that the top had been bitten off and the insides licked out”

“It’s probably a fox.” I declared with all the wisdom of an extra decade. They do that, you know.”

“But it has a little lion on it!”

“Genetically modified.”

I got a look that said I had not been totally convincing.

The strange thing is that only a week or so later we had exactly the same thing in our front garden. A lion stamped egg, half buried, and a few days later untopped and licked out.

About a month after these incidents I saw, in another garden, a third example of a licked out, half buried egg .

Where had they come from? A mile away is an egg packing plant. Would a fox have collected a lion stamped egg from there and carried it in its mouth, on at least 3 occasions, to bury it in a sub-urban garden?

I have heard that some residents have eggs delivered, and left on their doorsteps. Could our foxy friend be using these as a handy take-away?

How many other families have found eggy remnants in their garden?

Have YOU looked recently?