Builders were amazed to discover a pair of song thrushes had built their nest and laid their eggs, right in the middle of the busy site of the Saxton development – in a spot passed by around 250 noisy vehicles every day.

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The nest is at the top of a concrete pole which will form part of a walkway between two blocks of flats, so workers have had to reverse the way they construct it to leave the birds in peace until the chicks hatch.

They recognised the birds were song thrushes, whose numbers have been dropping for the past 60 years and which are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which means it is an offence to intentionally damage or destroy the eggs, young or nest of a song thrush while it is being built or in use.

Scott Devine, construction manager on the site on the East Bank of Leeds, said: "I noticed them about three weeks ago when it was a lot quieter on site, one weekend.

"I thought as soon as the site kicked off on the Monday morning they would go and find somewhere else but they never did."

He added: "Rather than stopping work it was just a case of rearranging our sequence, so starting at the other end."

The female bird is sitting on the eggs, while the male usually visits several times a day.

The workers have nicknamed the female "jailbird" as her strange little nest is behind bars.

It is just a few metres from a JCB noisily digging the ground all day, a dumper drives past it repeatedly and there is constant ear-splitting drilling and around 60 workers on site – but they said nothing seemed to bother their feathered friends.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said: "It's great to hear the builders are being responsible and not disturbing the nest.

"It's fairly unusual to have a bird nesting on a building site.
"They're usually found in safer areas like gardens and trees but clearly they wouldn't nest there unless they felt safe."

She said the eggs would be incubated for 13 to 15 days and the chicks would fledge 13 to 15 days later.

Mr Devine said he had known birds to nest in machines "but never bang in the middle of the site like this".

Work is around a third of the way through on the Urban Splash scheme to turn two dilapidated former council tower blocks into 410 upmarket apartments.

The regeneration experts will also provide 27 on-site allotments, as well as communal grassed areas which new homeowners and existing nearby residents will share – possibly along with a few song thrushes.