For anyone in the future looking - while I understand your quandary, you certainly did the best thing for your home and your health. Often birds have mites. Being on a wreath on your front door, chances are the mites would have made their way into your home. My understanding is they are extremely difficult to be rid of (minus a match). Our family found out the hard way about mites. Bird had nested in our primary door wreath when we were away on vacation. We just used an alternate door so as to not disturb them. Thought it would be interesting with the kiddos to keep an eye on how things work. A few days after they hatched, I kept noticing a black smudge on the inside of the door. I'd wipe it off, another would show up. I finally looked really close and saw the smudge was moving! MITES. Birds nest had to be moved immediately! We put it in the closest tree (about 40' away) lt turned out fine as momma found her lil ones. They took flight within a couple weeks, it seems like.

I have seen leaves to maybe 1m . It is fairly common in Australia , and I have seen it in seed several times and find it hard to believe it takes that long to mature . Usual time for many is only 2-3 months , with some to 1 year and a very few 18 months . I have set seed on several species that some of the most experienced growers in America have never managed to seed . Living in the true wet tropics really helps imho. To compare it with Cycads re. seed maturation .. some Zamia ripen in only 4 months , a recent cone on Z.psuedoparasitica took nearly 2 years , but this was down in the sub-tropics .

Al, I planted my fern as a house plant, and I did not know what to do. I just used what I had around, so I used coir instead of peat moss then I added some perlite, some bark 1/4 that I had around, and some truface 1/4 and some bonsai gravel 1/4 that I had around. I don't know if I did right or not, but it was supposed to like wet soil and also for the OP, note you can treat a fern with a fungicide if the ferns is not too far gone already. I have seen some ferns growing around my building that have black smut, it's like a black mold and I told the owners, but I doubt they will bother to treat those ferns. Ferns do get fungus and aphids also. They had these tiny white spots, people think ferns are care free, but they are much harder then they look.

There are some birds that lay their eggs in another birds nest. The Cuckoo, Cowbird, Whyda, Honeyguide and Black-headed Duck come to mind. "These birds, called brood parasites, lay their eggs in another bird's nest and let the other bird parents feed and raise their chicks. The "egg abandoner" is then free to mate again and lay more eggs in another nest. The cuckoo is the best known brood parasite and an expert in the art of cruel deception. Its strategy involves stealth, surprise and speed. The mother removes one egg laid by the host mother, lays her own and flies off with the host egg in her bill. The whole process takes barely ten seconds. Cuckoos parasitize the nests of a large variety of bird species and carefully mimic the colour and pattern of their own eggs to match that of their hosts. Each female cuckoo specializes on one particular host species. How the cuckoo manages to lay eggs to imitate each host's eggs so accurately is one of nature's main mysteries."