While I’m not much of an ornithologist, I can report it’s a brown bird. 

Brown Bird has made a shabby-chic nest above our retractable clothesline smack-bang in the middle of our undercover entertaining area. Former bird lodgers have always stuck to the perimeter.

Our entertaining area must have seemed like prime nesting real estate; dark and quiet due to the lack of use over the long winter this year.

It was only when we started cleaning a couple of weekends ago to spruce up the place for spring we found Small Brown Bird had already pegged out her camp.

First-in, best nest!

Somehow, though, I don’t think our bird tenant will appreciate the box seat she has on our outdoor movie nights.

She will be even less impressed when she realises the bird nursery sits atop a makeshift dance floor with flashing lights out of the bargain box at Kmart.

As for Justin Bieber’s Despacito on high rotation; this is rough enough to handle for even non-feathered parents.

Eleven years ago when I moved into a skinny timber terrace with my husband and our dog, we found we’d chosen the same rental as a local family of birds.

They too had settled in the upstairs bedroom, where it was warm and out of the Wellington wind, ahem, gales.

Unlike us, they’d camped inside the wall, snug as bird-bugs.

As a shift worker who only got to bed about 1am and asleep by 2am, I was never that keen to get up at sparrows.

It’s a well-known fact that early birds and night-owls only coexist with great care.

When the birds started chirping the dawn of a new day, it would set off our sleeping labradoodle for a hearty 10 minutes, followed by a semi-snooze, and then another five-minute rant. She would find the source of the noise if it was the last thing she did.

But, of course, she was barking up the wrong tree.

On the bright side, we never needed an alarm clock nor missed a morning appointment for almost a year.

After a couple of months of nesting – me now and not the birds so much – our eldest daughter arrived in spring 2006.

Within 24 hours of her turning up she had moved home with us, the dog … and the bird family.

What could go wrong, right? Babies sleep through an earthquake.

However, from weeks 2-8, she had a chronic case of colic that was particularly felt between 4am and 6am.

Those seven weeks would wear everyone in that house down.

The labradoodle was beside herself with worry but the birds simply couldn’t hack it at all.

The birds moved out. They probably flew south.

By summer there was a calm over the place we had not known in a whole year of living on that street.

Back in East Albury now, I’m tiptoeing around Small Brown Bird and seriously considering moving our spring parties inside. 

Bird lovers are invited to take part in this year’s Aussie Backyard Bird Count during National Bird Week, which runs from October 23 to 29. Those who want to participate can download the free app from aussiebirdcount.org.au.

I’m entering at least one bird. 

Though we’re expecting chicks any day now!