Birds happy to feather their nest with rubbish

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The elegant birds seem unfazed by the sea of rubbish on South Quay as they prepare to rear their young. The father patrols the murky water by a floating Chinese restaurant while the mother bird sits atop a precarious nest built from wire, polythene and anything else she can find.

Mark Grantham from the British Trust for Ornithology, which released the picture today, said: "It looks crazy - and a little sad. But birds are incredibly versatile and will make their nests anywhere safe and out of anything they can find."

There are about 10,000 breeding pairs of grebes in Britain.