A great tit mother peers down a traffic cone, where she has built her family nest. She dives down into the cone to feed her nine chicks, near to Holt Hall in NorfolkA mother, with an insect in her beak, peers down a traffic cone, ready to squeeze into the narrow hole and deliver the food for her young chicks.
For this traffic cone - only yards away from a busy road - is home tweet home for this family of resourceful great tits.
Inside the cone a group of nine chicks could be found, huddled together in a perfect circle on the nest
A lift of the traffic cone reveals the nine chicks, all huddled together, only yards from a busy roadThe chicks were only discovered when Chris Blake, head gardener at the field studies centre at Holt Hall in Norfolk, where the birds built their nest, made to move the cone in order to cut the grass.
Mr Blake said: 'I went to move the cone before cutting the grass and when I lifted it up there were nine eggs in a nest.
'I went back a couple of weeks later and all of the eggs had hatched.
'I've known tits to nest in walls and other places you wouldn't expect before but this is certainly the most unusual nest I have found.'
The birds were found near to the driveway of Holt Hall in NorfolkThe cone was by the main driveway into the hall but the tits do not seem to have been disturbed by the traffic.
Mr Blake added: 'The parents have been going in and out and one of them was up in the tree making a noise when I moved the cone.
'We kept quiet about it because if we put up a sign everybody would have been nosing in.'
Now the birds have flown the cone, and Mr Blake will finally be able to cut the grass.
Flown the cone: The birds are no longer in the nest, and the gardener can, once again, cut the grasssource: dailymail
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