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.

OMG, Evelyn! If you knew how many baby mockingbirds I hand fed while working at Audubon, you'd die! People would bring in baby birds all day long, and you couldn't convince them to leave them alone, so my job was to take care of them and get them prepared to be released back into the wild later on. One of the reasons we do not encourage people "rescuing" the baby birds is that there comes a time when the bird has imprinted so strongly on the parent bird, it will not take food from a person. You can cram it down their throats, but it will just sit in the crop area and not be digested. So removing them from the parent's care is often a death sentence. Now if a whole nest comes down (like during a storm) sometimes there is no recourse but to rescue them and try to feed them. And I know techniques have improved GREATLY from the days I was involved in bird rescue. So the odds might be better now. But lordy, lordy...I must have handraised at least 200 baby mockingbirds in a couple years time. Not to mention jays, grackles, thrashers, titmice, and maybe 1,000 mourning doves! (My least favorite baby birds of all time.) Anyway, your picture is a trip down memory lane for sure. Saintp, the length of time it takes an egg to hatch varies from species to species, but usually it is not very long. A week or ten days, often. I'll see if I can find out about bluejays. I don't remember. Maybe I never even knew. But the info is probably out there somewhere. Will get back to you later. Marcia

If you think you can dig around the drip line of the 'Bird's Nest' (I imagine) Spruce, slide it onto a tarp and transport it into a prepared new resting place, then I think it could be done. Fall just before going into dormancy would be best. I think the bigger question is whether you can grow hosta in zone 1b. Most hosta list USDA zone 3 as the coldest recommended. Do you know of anyone doing this? I think it would be hard to do if a USDA zone 1....or is 1b that Canadian system? Pictures, a measured size and transferring the question to the conifers forum would get a more expert answer on the relocation. Jon

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