In Early May 2020, Phoebe Vaughan from Slimbridge Wetlands & Wildlife Trust contacted Blackcountry Woodturners via the contact page on the website enquiring if the club would be interested in supplying the trust with a quantity of around 50 wooden Goose eggs in two different sizes and what the cost would be.

The eggs were required as dummy eggs, to be painted by staff and then used to swap the real eggs from various nests around the complex, this serves two functions help reduce damage and breakage by other birds and preserve boost numbers of new chicks.

The real eggs would then be incubated within facilities at the trust and replaced on the nest just prior to hatching. This would ensure the maximum return and best chances for the young bird’s survival going forward.

Wolfgang drew the request to the committee members and it was agreed that this would make an excellent lockdown club member challenge for all levels of ability, It was agreed the club would pick up costs and ask all members to make and donate the eggs. With this an email was circulated to everyone proposing the idea, this came back as a resounding yes and so the challenge was born.. Game on…

Wolfgang emailed Phoebe informing her that the club would make all the eggs and would do this at no charge to the trust to which they were stunned and very appreciative.

Within two weeks club members had made 106 wooden eggs, the eggs were then either collected from members’ porches and front door steps or dropped off the same way at the two agreed collection points Mell and Wolfgang’s homes.

A small sample of the eggs before sending off…..

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Six boxes of wooden eggs were boxed and sent to the trust, 5 by Mell and Wolfgang and 1 by Nigel and Teresa Goodricke who sent their own egg contribution as due to distance was simply a more practical solution during the Covid19 lockdown.

Within no time at all Phoebe had made contact stating the Trust had received all six boxes to which they were thrilled with the result and were staggered by the number of eggs made for them by our members.

A section of the reply…

To let you know that I have now received 6 incredible boxes of eggs.

Thank you so much! 

Today I managed a lesser snow goose nest, and put together a few photos to show you all.  You can see one old wood, with chipped gloss paint after a herring gull tried to eat it. There is then some real goose eggs mixed in with a few of your wooden ones.. The real goose eggs range from 105g to 140g, and so you see how different sizes can work in our favour 🙂  

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Both new and older club members, beginners to advanced were more than happy to help the trust in this very worthwhile cause, this being a different type of challenge, not one that comes around every day, the egg making being a welcome distraction to the mad Covid19 world we currently live in.

Here is a link to their website https://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/slimbridge/