Dinosaur Eggs

It finally stopped raining this weekend and, very briefly, the sun came out. So we headed to the Parco Nord, a large park on the outskirts of Milan for a long walk.

The park covers 1,500 acres and is a strange mixture of cultivated bits, and natural areas - woodland and agricultural land. It's not a flower-bed type of park, but there are a lot of flowering trees and shrubs. We came across an area full of philadelphus - would have looked spectacular a few weeks back but it was all over now. I was hoping that the lavender bushes would be in bloom, but they weren't quite ready.

There were however some rose bushes which were in full bloom and looked wonderful.

After all the torrential rain we've had, and the sudden sun, the humidity was sky high and at times we felt we were walking through a rainforest. So it was barely a surprise to come across a number of dinosaur nests - about seven in all scattered around the grassier areas of the park.

There's quite a lot of wildlife in the park - I've posted about it before - but I always thought it was confined to birds, a few mammals and some smaller reptiles. But these eggs were clearly on a different scale. Diplodocus maybe? Or triceratops? Surely the local authorities wouldn't allow raptors to nest in a public park?

There was no sign of the parents - probably hiding in the depths of the woods. Maybe dinosaurs don't look after their nests too much.

I wonder how long they'll take to hatch? I'll have to go back soon and see if I can get a photo of the babies. Now I bet that would push my hits up ....