WHEN searching for her new home, this mistle thrush obviously chose to ignore the estate agents' motto "location, location, location".

The mother bird plumped for the top of the traffic lights in Blackburn when deciding where to build her nest, despite the fact that they are at one of the busiest road junctions in East Lancashire.

Drivers in the town have had the window into nature for the past week since the mistle thrush, which is a slightly larger breed to the common thrush and is said to feed on mistletoe berries, chose the precarious position for her growing family.

Lancashire Evening Telegraph reader and keen bird-watcher Malcolm Hart, of Clayton-le-Dale, said: "It is rather nice to see, as mistle thrushes are not that common.

"There is lots of traffic there, but the mother has obviously decided she's safe up there. The babies could run the risk of cars when they start to leave the nest, though."

Kirsi Peck, from the wildlife enquiries department with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: "When it comes to breeds nesting in various places like street lights, it is fairly rare, and I have never heard of a mistle thrush choosing traffic lights before.

"When a bird chooses somewhere to make its nest, they just pick something which reminds them of a tree, and it doesn't matter if it has metal or wood below.

"Mistle thrushes are much rarer than the common thrush, and, as they are much bigger, when people see a mistle thrush, it attracts their attention, but they are not quite sure why.

"They are generally woodland birds so it is unusual to find them in a town centre."

There are 230,000 breeding pairs of mistle thrushes in Britain, compared with 4,400,000 for the blackbird and 1million for the song thrush.