It's an odd quirk of nature that birds - even chickens - typically lay just one egg a day, and many species rely on all the eggs in the clutch hatching on the same day.

Parent birds control incubation by modifying the temperature that triggers embryo development, which is one way that species ensure roughly synchronous hatching.

Bird in the hand: Professor Simon Griffith and one of his zebra finches. Credit:Macquarie University

However, climate change - particularly the increase in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves - will take some of that control away from birds, causing some eggs to hatch earlier than others, according to new research published in the Royal Society Open Science journal on Wednesday.

The team, led by Simon Griffith from Macquarie University, studied zebra finches, a common and hardy species found across central Australia that typically lays five eggs per clutch, all of which hatch on the same day.