Apparently, the females are not very into sitting on them for weeks in a row, so they throw a bunch of sand, leaves and twigs over their eggs, to keep them warm. The birds always come back to the same nest, so the older the female, the bigger the heap of debris covering them. And we have just found a huge one – as tall as a person and 5 metres wide!

Three of the Kuni men run up it and start digging. They have strongly advised me not to follow their example, because apart from being a bush fowl nest, these heaps are favoured by mungi (the itching little mites).

The men dig deeper, and deeper, and deeper... until two of them completely disappear. Suddenly, a hand emerges from the heap, with an egg! Shortly after they all the men climb out, carrying a total of 4 eggs. That will be quite an omelette! To ensure a safe arrival at the camp, we wrap the eggs in leaves and bundle them up.

On our way back we come across the pink spotted eggs again. "The boys will get them tonight, when they come back to catch the mother…”