House renovation vs bird

[Tweetybye]

Currently doing building work, and just discovered a starling nesting on the wall due to be knocked through. Builder says he’d take care of it. Implying he’d move to neighbouring tree and let them ‘sink or swim’.

Technically illegal but cant say I’m too bothered given the number of rabbits, pheasants hit with the car, ant nests and other bugs destroyed over the years.

Curious to how many people would actually stop building work for months, delay kitchen, window, door installations, delay electrician/plumbers on a whim all down to a single bird? Shedding any moral postulating I’m curious to what people would actually do in this situation if it was them.

YABU: stop work immediately
YANBU: what bird? Leave the builder be

This illegal activity is probably in the same bracket as those not paying their tv licence.

! This person is crazy!

This illegal activity is probably in the same bracket as those not paying their tv licence

If you think a bird on the red list due to severe decline is the same as the bbc not getting as much money then I’m not sure why you’ve even asked this question.

Er, no. It's viewed as much more serious. Not paying a TV licence - up to £1000 fine plus costs. Interfering with the nest of a nesting bird - up to 6 months' jail and unlimited fines.

If people ignore birds and allow their habitats to be destroyed, we'll end up with no birds eventually

We recently had to hold up works due to bees. In a full renovation there is plenty of other work to be done elsewhere.

It is illegal to disturb nesting birds. That includes moving their nests from A to B and we all know the builder isn't going to do that, don't we? He'll chuck it in a skip.

Id do whatever necessary to enable the birds to fledged, ideally taking advice and moving them if possible so building work could continue.

In other news I dont like seeing seagulls or street pigeons come to harm, and happily pay my TV licence.

Agree with PP who said the builder is a cunt. I dont think I'd be friends with the OP either.

Let’s be honest here, very few people would chose to lose 100s of pounds (if not 1000s) over moving the nest. But of course, way easier to make the moral decision when it is not your money.
To answer OP’s question: personally I would work with the builder to see if there is something else they could do in the next few weeks. But if it meant a delay of say a month, meaning one month of rent to live elsewhere, this would be a 2-3k at least, so no I wouldn’t insist they wait.

Yeah, it's today's rage bait poster.

I would 100% delay until they’d fledged. Agree with PP that you and the builder sound awful.

You and your builder are selfish and unreasonable

I hope one day the builder makes the same comment to someone who wouldn't turn a blind eye to something immoral and illegal and they report him /share his vile views in a review

Many renovation projects hit bumps in the road and delays and this is one. Suck it up.

😂

People turn blinds eye all the time. Do you approach and offer help to every homeless person you see? Do people confront or stop shoplifters. Do you report people parking in disabled spaces without a blue badge? The answer is most likely no on all accounts. People like you cherry pick when to help and what laws to abide by so I find this kind of crusade amusing as I can see the hypocrisy.

We had a starling nesting right by our bedroom window a few years ago. It made a tremendous racket and woke us up every morning until the chicks fledged. No way would I have agreed to remove the nest. Not quite the same as your situation, but you asked what people would actually do, and I would definitely delay for the few weeks it will take for the chicks to fledge.

But these things are not comparable.

I am not directly responsible for the harm caused by the actions in your example. You can chose a course of action that doesn't cause harm, you just don't want to do that

In this case, you would be purposely destroying the birds nest, something that you can chose to not do to avoid the harm it would cause, but you don't want to do that as its inconvenient for you.

It’s not a moral decision though, it is a decision on whether to break the law or not and the OP seems OK with that. As a PP said, hope she’s OK with the builder ignoring building regs to save a bit of time and money, although I guess the money saved would be going into his back pocket, not off her bill.

Seems like she posted on here so she can get all judgey about pearl clutching, softies who care more about a poor little tweety bird than her new kitchen.

It is not illegal to ignore homeless people, to not confront shoplifters or not report parking violations.

Total dick move for the sake of 3-4 weeks when builders delay timelines when it rains for 20 minutes claiming its thrown everything off 🙄 but you obviously know that. What a twattish thing to do. Enjoy your live laugh love extension bbz.

You say break the law as if it carries the same weight as stealing or something. It’s illegal to speed. Can you confidently say you’ve never driven over 30/60/70mph in your car? That’s breaking the law. Every time. In a single car journey a huge chunk of people will have broken the law and endangered lives.

But then a few days ago when it was about a cleaner asking to be paid in cash - clearly to avoid paying taxes, which is also breaking the law, most people were not that judgy about it.

It doesn’t matter whether it is as serious as other crimes, it is still breaking the law.

I’m sure if I started a thread saying ‘I’m going to burgle my neighbour’s house because they’ve got some things I can’t afford to buy myself’ then I’m sure you’d say ‘Yeah, crack on, its not as serious as stabbing someone so it doesn’t matter’, wouldn’t you?

I would lean towards waiting the five (or less, if it's established already) weeks for the babies to fledge. Starlings are very fascinating and beautiful.

But I eat meat almost every single day, and pigs, cows etc are also beautiful and fascinating, so who the fuck am I to have any opinion whatsoever? I bet most of the people on here eat meat but feel bad for the starling. It does feels wrong though.

Ahh, the duplicity of humankind. To have compassion and greed side by side, to cherish and to destroy using the same hands.

Yabu