A beautiful day here at St Abb's Head, the perfect spring morning to discover the first Shag egg of the season. Every year at St Abb's Head we monitor the productivity of the Shags, meaning how many chicks are produced per nest on average. We mark each nest on a photograph of the study area, and then follow them throughout the season, recording what happens. This is nest number 2 on our White Heugh study plot, and was the only egg spotted out of the 38 nests I recorded today. These birds are definitely front-runners for the first chick of the season, expected sometime in mid-May. Lizy

First Shag egg spotted this year, two Razorbills look on