I’VE been watching a blackbird building her nest.

Hardworking and with an incredible eye for detail, she collects dead grass from the lawn and then flies with her bundled collection into a laurel bush to carefully construct an intricate woven cup.

It has taken her over a week and because all building activity has ceased in the last day or two, it won’t be long before she begins to lay the first of her four bluish eggs. I’m pretty sure this nest won’t succeed as she doesn’t appear to have hidden it well enough within the bush. Magpies, crows and squirrels are ever present threats and I estimate that well over half the songbird nests that are built in our garden each spring will eventually get predated upon.

But it is not really something I get too heated about – it’s all part of nature and enough young seem to successfully fledge over the course of a season to sustain our local songbird populations.

The structure of nests varies greatly. Some like those of the long-tailed tit are incredibly complicated affairs, containing over 1,000 feathers and made with delicate lichens and spiders webs. Woodpigeons on the other hand build the most rudimentary nest, no more than an untidy platform of small twigs. There is not even a decent cup to cradle the eggs and it wouldn’t surprise me if eggs occasionally roll out.

But the prize for sheer endeavour in nest building must surely go to the cock wren. In spring, he will build several intricately constructed nests in his territory in an attempt to attract a mate. This ball-shaped masterpiece with its tiny entrance hole woven near the top is sometimes built in a bush, but more usually in a crevice in a wall, or amongst the roots of an up-ended tree. A female bird will then cast a critical eye over each nest and the one that meets with her approval is lined with feathers in preparation for egg laying.

Whilst such endeavours mean a considerable expenditure of effort on the part of the male, the plus side is that his impressive property portfolio may attract more than one female for him to mate with.