That evening Eve Conrad of the cottage received a phone call telling her that her son Daniel was in hospital from an accident so she left to be with him.

While searching for food at nearby Forge Farm she heard the voice of her own kind and met a male dunnock.

Meanwhile, a cuckoo who was raised in the valley had migrated from Africa and substituted the dunnocks' fourth egg for her own feeling the need to lay.

On the cuckoo's seventh day the dunnock father was hit by a car whilst searching for food in the early morning light and was eaten by a crow when he died.

The remaining dunnock nestling spent much of his time and energy dodging attacks from the cuckoo and the feeding became less frequent with the mother being the sole provider.

When the dunnock nestling was two days away from full growth the cuckoo tried to evict him but he survived by perching on the branches of the bush.