A Black-necked Stilt pair spotted a Gopher Snake in the grass near their nest, then watched as the snake entered the nest with its four eggs. The birds tried to distract the snake by jumping and flapping their wings, to no effect. The last picture in the sequence shows them looking on as the snake takes one of the eggs in its mouth. Later I returned and found the nest empty with the adults standing nearby.

A birder who knows the ways of gopher snakes told me the snake would have swallowed each of the eggs whole, then crushed each one inside itself with a body twist; they digest the egg contents and some of the eggshell, and later excrete the rest of the shells.