A Costessey cul-de-sac has been left facing a street light black out - and a family of blue tits are to blame.
Since Tuesday, May 21, St Walston's Close in the town has been without its street lights, after electricians upgrading them to LED lights encountered an unexpected complication.
On attempting to install the new lights, the contractors came across blue tits nesting within three of the eight lamps in the street - putting the brakes on the upgrade scheme.
The works were being carried out as part of an ongoing scheme to cut energy costs by Norfolk County Council, which is responsible for a selection of the lamps in Costessey.
On discovering the nests, the electrical works had to be postponed and cannot continue until the birds have fledged from their nests.
One of the three street lamp columns is outside the home of county councillor Tim East, who raised the situation at a recent meeting of the council's infrastructure and development select committee.
Mr East said: "The lamps are turned off at midnight anyway, but it is really rather dark in the area at the moment before then. "It was particularly dark the other night."
A spokesman for Norfolk County Council said: "Our contractor visited St Walston's Close on May 21 to upgrade the lights as part of our ongoing programme.
"Three of the eight lights all had birds nesting either in the lantern or inside the column.
"To minimise any disturbance, the electrical contractor stopped any further work to the occupied lamp columns and lanterns and will return to complete the road's upgrade once the birds have left the nest.
"All the lights in this road are fed from UK Power Networks connections and not a county council-owned cable network, so the removal of any lantern should not have affected the operation of other lights.
"An operative will be visiting the site today and will report back to us shortly."
The council contractor, Amey, is continuing to monitor the situation on the street.
"Those blue tits have a lot to answer for," Mr East added.
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