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 made the same mistake, planting BOP too close to screened porch. However, I dug up and moved the entire plant to a better location without trimming it to the ground as you have done. The root ball was huge and filled with a nest of baby ringneck snakes. My BOP probably weighed 150 pounds and was incredibly difficult to move. It took the abuse well and is very happily growing in a good location now. Take care of yours before it grows back. It will grow back. With a vengeance. Best wishes!

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

Well you certainly can help by putting out water. Even if it's not large enough for her to swim in, she can find it and drink from it. Be sure it's far from the site of the nest so that you can easily access it to clean and refill it (or pick it up to do that in another area of the yard). I know duck poop looks more unsightly than other wild birds that nest in your yard, or sidewalk, but imo, a nesting duck is not different from a nesting sparrow or bluejay or dove that you might see in your yard. Now swallows, I will admit might be different, because they poop right outside their nest, which is often under your house overhang somewhere, so you'll get a build up of bird poop in a certain spot. For swallows, I would say that unless you can tolerate that, you would also do better to encourage them to move away. But I can't see anything negative about nesting ducks, unless someone has some bad experience with it that can enlighten us.