We have uninvited guests! And we don't know how long they're staying!

Daily noises on a development such as where we live are increasing as the weather improves, We have the usual traffic, music and dogs barking. We are now hearing childrens shouts and the splashes of swimming pools. Most of these go by unnoticed as we are used to them and if they get a bit much, we can close the doors.

But we now have an additional noise that can be heard constantly from within the villa. The constant call of chicks to their mum and dad for food. Yes, we have become home to a nest of newly hatched chicks. And where are they? Well, not in any of the bushes we have but they have found a spot safe from cats and our dogs.

In our kitchen we have a cooker hood & extractor fan - which has never been connected up to the extractor outlet which is about 3 feet to the left of the hood. Here you can see it taped over as in winter there is a howling gale comes through it.

So, of course this means there is a nice, dry, quiet pipe through the wall out over the drive some 10 feet from the floor, away from the upper terrace and completely safe from anything that doesn't fly - and one bright nesting pair of birds have made very good use of it.

Here is the pipe - and we can only see into it with a step ladder.

And here is the nest, you can just about make out a chick top right of the nest,if you use your imagination.

Neil did ask me early on if I wanted him to move the nest, but I said not. We had a nest in the extractor pipe from the bathroom at our old house in Dinnington and my Dad always said we should wait for the chicks to leave the nest before clearing it out and making it safe from future nesting birds, and I felt we should do the same here. Let the parents rear their chicks in safety and once they have fled the nest we will block it up.

In the meantime, the tweeting is quite nice, like being in the countryside, the dogs completely ignore it and it will be gone in a few weeks when the chicks fly the nest - and we'll probably never even realise they have gone until we notice the cheeping has stopped - probably several days later.