Hi Velvet, Thank you so much for your reply. I have been trying to watch her, but I still not 100% sure if she is egg-binding or brooding... (thanks for your link. It's really helpful!) All I know is she opens her eyes while she is sitting, may lost a bit weight, but hard to tell since I don't pick her up usually... Once in a while, I see her breathing hard like right after she lays egg, but not all the time. Her vent feather is a bit dirty. Didn't think she looked sick... I went ahead and mixed up live oil, karo and milk and fed her some of it. When I opened one of our egg collecting door which allow me to reach her w/o going inside of the coop, she didn't move much. When I tried to feed the mix, she moved her necks a lot, but didn't stand up. Finally I tried to pick her up, she stood up and try to go away from me. Her abdomen didn't look distended too me. I touched around it, but didn't feel any egg (do I need to squeeze hard to feel egg??) She is a pretty fluffy bird (look a lot bigger than another Cuckoo Maran I had before). I will try to take her picture tomorrow w/day light and post it here since it's pretty dark outside now. Thanks!! -b

The type of bird she is I believe is a regular sparrow as far as I know. The father has red on his chest and the mother is just a plain brown sparrow, I live in the Arizona desert in Lake Havasu City, Az. I failed to mention that the birds have not hatched yet they are still in there eggs. She laid the eggs last week. The egg laying started on the 8th she had one a day and has 3 now, so they were laid on the 8th, 9th and 10th. Adding the fake foilage is a good idea. I can monitor the nest very easily because it is right by the front door hanging on the wall and I have a glass front door. bandjzmom, this is not a hanging basket(although I do have those hanging out front too),this is a wrought iron planter with a flat back that one puts the coco fibar in it and it hangs on the wall. I stopped watering it because it would of for sure flooded the nest and I did not want to do that so I let the flowers die and that is the problem, it put the nest right out in the open. I think I will move it up and add some fake foilage (GREAT IDEA Lisa) I will then watch the nest from the inside at the front door. I think I have a better chance of this working because the birds have not hatched yet. I will keep you updated. I am relieved to know that she will not leave her eggs. Thanks and if anyone else feels like chiming in I am all ears. Thanks Again, Carrie

It could have been the nest of American Crows and they left the debris on the ground. I checked the Birds of North America online site (I can't link to it because it's a subscription site, but I hope it's OK to quote from it) - Great site, well worth joining. If you participated in the GBBC you get a free trial subscription. Apparently crows sometimes pull living twigs off trees to make their nests, and they line them with various materials including bark strips. From Birds of North America online site: "Nest Construction Both sexes build nest; no information on relative share of each sex. Although both sexes bring in nest-lining material, female does more of detailed fine-tuning of nest lining than does male (CC). Builds nest mostly between 07:00 and 11:00 (S. S. Dickey in Gross 1946); early in morning, as early as 8 min after sunrise (Reaume 1987b); likely throughout day (CC), as in Northwestern Crow (Verbeek and Butler 1999). New nest distinguishable from old one by presence of fresh, dead twigs on ground below; these twigs fall accidentally and are never retrieved (Reimann 1942). In Encino, CA, and Stillwater, OK, pulls and breaks off living twigs from trees as well as picking up twigs from ground (CC). Gathers materials from different directions around nest tree, not from nest tree itself (Reaume 1987b). Helpers in Florida (Kilham 1989), Cape Cod, MA (Chamberlain-Auger et al. 1990), and in Oklahoma (CC) participated in bringing material to the nest. With 2 adults and several helpers bringing sticks, the congestion around the nest resulted in birds having to wait for a chance to get to the nest; helpers usually left their sticks for the female to work in (Kilham 1989). Period between completion of nest and egg-laying in Florida 6Â16 d (Kilham 1989), but Emlen (1942) reported building right up to egg-laying in California. Time to complete first nests in California 13 d (range 11Â17, n = 6 nests [Emlen 1942]; 10Â14 d [CC]); 5 and 9 d in 2 nests with helpers in Florida (Kilham 1989), 10Â14 d in Oklahoma (CC). Second nests take less time to build: 9 d (Emlen 1942); 6Â8 d (Graber et al. 1987); 5Â10 d in California and Oklahoma (CC). Structure And Composition Matter Bottom and sides consist mainly of dead branches, 0.6Â3.5 cm diameter (Reimann 1942) and usually Claire

Yes, it is all bark really. The only other bird I thought could be possible was a Carolina Wren but I don't think so. We moved the house today after much though. We were at a loss what to do. The house has broken wood on the bottom, don't know how this happened but it was leaning where it was attached to the pole. I'm afraid it would not have made it safely with the birds inside. So, we made the decision to move the house gently to an area where it will have support, about 10-12 feet directly behind the pole, and pray. We have not gone out there today hoping that with piece and quite momma will not mind the move and brave coming back. We had no clue what else to do and felt this was the safest thing to give them a chance. At first I thought it was kind of silly that this bird was bring mulch into the house until I checked again and noticed the 6 eggs. Hopefully I'll get some pictures.