Birds' Eggs

I had noticed a small bird flitting by the window, over the patio where I have nailed a flat piece of wood to a post for birds to feed off. Today the small bird stopped flying in its hectic, vigorous and fast moving way and clung briefly to the fence. I was able to see that it was a wren. It was about two inches long and about one inch wide. It was brown and looked fat. I couldn't see the eyes, probably too small but saw a small beak.
When I was a child I lived close to a wood where there were all sorts of birds. We did what I suppose is now called "a politically incorrect act" and collected their eggs. I had a small collection of sparrows', blackbirds', thrushes' eggs. I didn't have a robin's. Nor did I have a wren's - though one day I could have.
I found the wren's nest and put my small child's finger through the hole in the front to see if there were any eggs there. There was an unwritten rule about the ethical collection of eggs which was, that since birds could only count to three, you were allowed to take an egg from its nest if there were more than three there. This rule was passed on from generation to generation, I assume, by word of mouth; no one knew where it had originated.
I can't recall how many eggs were in the wren's nest but I had made up my mind, as my finger entered the cosy warm environment of the inner sanctum, that I would not take a single egg. There was something so magical to me about the warmth of that "room" - that home! - I could not bring myself to defile it. Or was I that sensitive? Maybe there'd been just two eggs there.
You don't see many small birds these days. At The Hill, Abergavenny, where adult education classes I attended frequently were held, there had been, twenty odd years back, many small birds. Now there aren't many, if any. But there are plenty of magpies hopping about the grounds.
Of course, they are, these politically correct days, protected.