Fire bow, ember but no fire!
This is killing me. Several times now I have successfully made a glowing ember and put it on my tinder bundle, only to have it go out without lighting the bundle into a fire. The last time I cheated and used regular tissue in the bundle; the ember was a big smoking piece of wood about an inch across and all it did was slowly burn through the tissue paper while I blew at various intensities until it winked out. HELP!
work it a little longer too
Not like I'm there looking over your shoulder simon, but something I've noticed is that people start adding their tinder and blowing as soon as they get a "glow". Work the fire drill a little longer and the ember's only going to get hotter. If you can feel the heat, you should be good, place your tinder and blow lightly. The other thing I've noticed is people don't have their other materials ready, as soon as your tinder lights, you should have some really small kindling to add and then some larger stuff. I've seen people get their tinder burning and it's burned out before they can add any wood to the fire. Not meaning to sound preachy, just hoping this is helpful. The tinder from the old bird's nest actually sounds like a good idea to me, I've never tried that, but I will.