Forgive me whatever, I have sinned.  Today I cleaned my outdoor gadgets and removed a small, sloppy, old, semi-built bird nest.  I had birds nesting on unlikely places but this one is directly under the flood light and wiring gadgets.  The flood light was used as an anti-theft, anti-vandalism deterrent, driven by infra-red sensors.  May be it wasn't working for a long time.

I don't usually remove nests.  Even with people walking all over, mowing right under, cars parking right under, the birds can survive.  The nests are even reused by the same or different birds the next year.

This one seems so sloppy and small and attached to nothing much so I think it's an half built one.  But I was wrong.

I walk right under it everyday and I didn't notice any signs of life.  Usually mother birds will fled when someone walks nearby.  Maybe it's facing the main road so they are used to the traffic.

Also I never checked the nest because firstly it's difficult to look inside when the nests are built to hide the chicks.  Secondly I have the phobia that there may be some failed hatchings, or awful food still left inside.

When I throw the nest off the eaves overhang, I noticed some cotton like things dropped on the ground.

When I finished cleaning up the mess at the eaves, I discovered what I did.  The cotton things are egg shells.  There is one tiny lump of pink creature that is breathing.  It may have hatched or came from a broken egg.  There maybe a mostly broken egg with yolk spilling out. I hoped to salvage a whole egg but on close inspection it was damaged.

I can't handle it other than hose the whole tiny mess into the grass and plants, at a distance.  The nest looked sloppy but from the inside it was silky smooth, forming more than an hemisphere.

I wanted to show the kids what a real nest looks like, and then place it next to an decorative nest.  Then I decided not to look at it any more and let it RIP in the trash collector bin.

After a bad weekend it's sad.