Neighbour problem with wild birds

[Chocolate50]

We have nesting wild birds in our garden every year. My neighbour who we've been fairly friendly with for a number of years with no real issues (although has sometimes been a little selfish at times but I've let this go as don't want to create problems) asked me if I saw any abandoned eggs (sometimes happens) if she could have them so she could hatch them (I think her son was interested). I've given her a couple once I'm sure that the mother wasn't coming back.

Anyway there's a nest in our garden, with bird coming & going, but last week my neighbour says that there was another animal attacking this nest & she's taken all of the eggs - not sure how she knew this because she can't see the nest from her house. At this point I go outside to see mother bird really distressed looking for her eggs. So I knock on the neighbours door & ask if I can put the eggs back. No she tells me that the mother wouldn't accept them, I eventually persuade her to give them back as I'm worried about the mother bird & so she gives them all back (or I thought she did). I put the eggs on nest, bird sits on them & all is good.
However I am by this point annoyed that my neighbour has gone into my garden & without bothering to knock, has taken these eggs from this nest, however had made it clear we wanted them returned & she seemed to comply.

But then another turn. She sends me a message saying should she put 'the other eggs back too as she's not sure if she actually wants to hatch all of these birds' (bare in mind I thought that all of the eggs had been returned). I say yes put them back. Then I get a message with a picture of a newborn bird saying 'too late they're hatching'. This picture shows at least 6 eggs. I'm livid by this point. I ask her why she kept them & that they should be with the mother & that we don't believe in taking eggs out of nests with no good reason anyway - at the point that the mother returned that's when they needed to all go back & that the nest was in our fucking garden anyway. You get the drift.
I get a half hearted apology where she refuses to give hatched bird back to mother (I am certain that the mother bird would've accepted it) & saying that there's nothing she can do. I say well give them back now before the rest hatch. So I knock again on the door & ask for eggs back & say I'm going to phone wildlife help for advice. She reluctantly gives them (son looking disappointed in background me feeling like an ogre), I put them nest the nest mother takes them straight away & all is good again.
However I've now discovered that she kept at least 3 eggs. Her reasoning is that some are lost to predators in the wild, this totally goes against our ethics which are that the best place for these birds is with mother in wild & our role is to support but not interfere in this way. At the point that the mother bird returned & looked distressed was when they should've all gone back. I think my neighbour has been really selfish to do this & think she only wanted to bring up the birds herself for her own reasons, nothing to do with predators. My opinion has changed completely now about her & she had the opportunity to put things right & didn't.

I don't want to sound over dramatic but I'm actually feeling really violated - she was obviously watching the nest (I know she's used webcams on nests in her garden before now & the thought has crossed my mind), and am really angry that she came in, took these eggs, refused to return them, then only returned some & has really offended my ethical beliefs by objectifying these wild animals (I hear her son playing with these birds in their garden). I'm seriously pissed off.
I tried to explain this to her but she clearly thinks I'm over reacting & says things like 'its the same outcome, we'll raise them & let them go, this is what would've happened anyway except the mother would be raising them instead of us'.

So my dilemma is now I'm not able to trust my neighbour, do I try to communicate about this any longer or should I leave it. I'm aware that I could report her as I don't think what she's done is legal but it's done now. I just don't want it happening again, it's really stressed me out!

OP we used to have ducks. They slept in a duck house in our garden, but were let out in the morning and went to the village pond. They nested everywhere. They will lay an egg every day, sometimes in the nest, sometimes where ever they feel like it.

The odd eggs that you find eg the one in the grrenhouse, are not their nests. (unless they come back every day and add to it)

Once they decide to nest, they lay a clutch, one per day up until they have enough, and then they start sitting.

In our village everyone used to look out for them, pick up the eggs when they started laying in odd places and let us know, then we could encourage that duck to lay in the duck house (safe from the fox)
Every year we would lose a duck, and then she would reappear a few weeks later with ducklings in tow, having been sitting under a bush in someone's garden.

So I wouldn't woryr about the odd egg in the greenhouse, and I certainly wouldn't handle it and add it to any nest.

but I agree that both of you should leave the nests well alone.

I would send her a letter telling her it is illegal, and that in future you will call the police and point out the fines/jail sentence etc

I just can’t believe what I’m reading.

It’s absolutely bollocks that those eggs were left for a week and then hatched. I had an incubator accidentally turn off for 15 hours through the night. Most of the hatchlings died in the shell, the rest hatched a few days late but were very weak, some of those didn’t make it

Do you live in Royston Vasey?

What's awful is schools encourage this behaviour by renting incubators and hatching chicken eggs. Then discarding the chicks when they hatch. It doesnt teach children anything about animal responsibility.

True dessicator

Your neighbour is an idiot with a total disregard for wildlife. She is trespassing to steal birds' eggs? What a tosser.

@steppemum yes I only approached the nest to place the eggs back in, once the neighbour had removed them, I wouldn't have otherwise, and I don't know why posters are attacking the idea of handing a stray egg, its not the same as going into a nest and taking eggs out, which I would never dream of doing and which is why I am so annoyed with my neighbour.
@Herpesfreesince03 - I think you have misread, I didn't say that any eggs hatched that was picked up from the greenhouse! There was one stray egg (one that has been explained by another poster as a practice egg that sometimes ducks lay whilst they are looking for a nest to lay all of their eggs in) this egg was left on our greenhouse floor, we gave it to our neighbour as quite often people do find them in our village and try to hatch them (don't ask me why) - however it did not hatch. Several weeks later the whole incident happens with this nest, which we would obviously leave well alone and what has prompted this post in the first place was that my neighbour interfered with the nest by removing the eggs which she didn't tell me about until after the even, (she said that a crow was attacking it), she then initially refused to put them back even though the mother duck was very distressed and I was fucking furious about this, under pressure she gave the eggs back (or I thought that she had)) - but then found out she lied about how many duck eggs she had and that she had hatched some herself anyway. I am massively pissed off about it, because I feel that it is wrong to take duck eggs from a nest.
But just wanted to clarify that the egg on the floor was never hatched! hope that makes sense.

I would definitely call the R(or S)SPCA.
That’s illieagal.

@bibbitybobbitycats thank you for your post but I think you have misunderstood, the nest was only disturbed when my neighbour unbeknown to us until after the event, removed the eggs because she said that there was a magpie attacking it. I was livid about this and asked her to put them back which she eventually did although effectively lied about how many eggs there were so hatched some herself which I am also furious about. The duck nest would not have been disturbed by us at all - and indeed wasn't until I put the eggs back which I had requested from my neighbour (the ones she had taken). The egg on the floor of the greenhouse wasn't this ducks as we have loads of wild ducks, it was weeks ago and nothing to do with this mother duck, but it was a 'practice' egg which is explained as a 'dud' on the RSVP website. People in the village are always picking these up to try to hatch & they would never hatch in the wild as no one is sitting on them. I thought that this was relatively harmless but now see that it may have been misunderstood by my neighbour who then thought it was fine to remove eggs from a nesting duck, which is hugely different in my eyes & I am struggling to make the leap from an egg that's been lying around for a week or so to thinking its ok to go into a nest to remove eggs from a mother. Honestly you shoudl have seen the poor duck, she was so upset, and my neighbour just say 'I know' fucking hell I was so mad!

@BathshebaAndGabriel no sorry I don't know where that is!

I think everyone is giving the OP a hard time.

She did not disturb the nest, but tried to get the eggs back.

It is her neighbour who is 100% the idiot here.

@steppemum these are also wild ducks they aren't ours - they just come into our garden and lay - lots of then every year in fact the egg in the greenhouse was in a completely different garden, was weeks ago and I think had nothing to do with this mother duck, it was there for at least a week, and we moved it to under a wheelbarrow just in case mum wanted it but it was a dud as explained by RSVP website, the practice eggs you are talking about in your post, it was just the whole thing about the neighbour removing the eggs and not wanting to put them back I had to fight her for them so that I could return them to the mother!

@steppemum aww thank you, and its gone a bit chinese whispers I think thank you for your post x

Take her son without asking and look after him for a few days

In all seriousness she was very out of order and I'd go nuts at this, but also I think your actions (i.e. giving someone who clearly doesn't know or care much about birds an egg to hatch) encouraged this weird and unethical behaviour

You want to both get a decent hobby and leave the poor birds' nests alone 😡

So she's taking eggs from their nest (Baby birds)That's no different to going into a maternity ward and stealing a new born. I was going to say In my opinion, but. It's not opinion it's fact.

Don't be bloody stupid baby spider.

I agree with babyspider taking the offspring of any creature for your pleasure is abhorrent.

I hope you have reported her, OP. She clearly won’t be told and the damage she has done is vile. What a terrible role model for her son,

If you don’t report her she will carry on. And what the hell has she done with the poor little birds that hatched?! It’s evil behaviour.

I agree with @Awwlookatmybabyspider too. @Chocolate50 do whatever it takes to ensure this doesnt happen again for the rest of the season, or in future years. It is your responsibility to ensure that this doesnt happen again. Get a protection order if you need to. No more mixed messages to your batshit neighbour because if you are too nice and polite that may be a problem with her.

It's absolutely wrong
I assume those of you comparing removing eggs from females with baby stealing don't eat eggs on ethical grounds?

agree with @PickwickThePlockingDodo thats why we got so upset by it, objectifying wild birds isn't something we agree with. And for the record, again, I didn't 'mess with the birds nest', I simply returned the eggs to her after they had been taken, I fought my neighbour for them. And the stray egg was not in a nest, this is something recognised by the PDSA as practice eggs, they tend to lay wherever then abandon the egg deciding to nest elsewhere. The bird that layed that egg (probably not the nesting mum) layed in the middle of our greenhouse so we had to move it eventually. As I said lots of people find these lying around in the village and for some strange reason try to hatch them. I agree though, nests should not be messed with at all, I was devastated with my neighbour removing them from the duck nest and devastated for the mother duck who was so upset - I fought her for the eggs I was determined to get them back I have never fallen out with my neighbour having lived next door to her for 10 years but this was just too much, it really was. I now know that she lied about how many there actually were and kept some so am still outraged about that too. I am really reassured that most people on here have responded with saying that it isn't ok, I was starting to think it was me as my response has been met with 'but they'd die in the wild' by my neighbour, this might be true but I think they have a better chance of survival with the mother in any case. Not with a person! x

@nanbread now that is a bit of an assumption, my neighbour actually does know a lot about birds, she has looked after several baby birds fallen from nests etc, which is why I was so surprised at her behaviour and attitude to this mother duck and her eggs, and me for kicking up a huge fuss about it, I know that the ducks are wild but they were in my garden and I felt a responsibility to not let that happen to her.