Blue Tits nesting in the cigarette box outside Coty UK Ltd

by Thom Morris

Smoking during pregnancy isn’t a concern for this blue tit who has built her dream home in an ashtray.

Smokers at the Coty manufacturing site near Eureka Park in Ashford are finding it a drag having been warned not to stub out their cigarettes in the container.

A sign on the metal butt-bin states “Birds nest inside. Please DO NOT put your fags out in here”.

Engineering director at Coty, Mark Springer, said he thinks some of the staff must have put the sign up after spotting the bird huffing and puffing between its lighter construction work.

When leaving, the feathered creature uses one of the bin’s four holes to check the area is clear before flying off to collect twigs and food.

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says birds will nest wherever there is an opportunity.

Last year, blue tits were found to have made a nest in an ashtray outside a community centre in Cambridge as well as another in a beer garden at a pub in Thorpe St Andrew.

The year before another set up home in a Tyneside business park.