A great tit with elevated ideas has made its nest in a  6 metre high ‘bult’ or stack of wood meant to go up in flames on Easter Monday, regional broadcaster Omroep Flevoland reports.

The Easter bonfire, which was to take place at the Roggebotstaete, a nature reserve in Dronten in the province of Flevoland, will now be cancelled until the great tit has hatched its eggs and the little ones have flown the nest.

‘I was just about to press the send button to send off the invites when someone said, uh oh, I don’t think it’s going to happen,’ project leader Lennard Duijvestijn told the broadcaster.

‘I thought that’s it; no party. We had a small bonfire on the estate last year and decided to really go for it this Easter. But a little bird got in the way. We don’t mind; we live according to the rhythm of nature here. It’ll just have to be a summer bonfire instead.’

Easter fires are lit in various parts of Europe and probably have pagan origins. In the Netherlands, most are found in Drenthe, Groningen, Overijssel, Twente, Friesland and Gelderland but there are all sorts of regional variations about what is burnt and when

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