An ice cream van insurance holder in Braintree, Essex, recently found something unexpected under the bonnet of his vehicle.
The man, who had driven his ice cream van for several hours every day during the school half-term break, had his curiosity aroused when he saw a wagtail jump through the grill at the front of his vehicle.
When he looked through the grill he saw a wagtail nest with six baby birds inside it.
"I'm amazed they survived. I was going to go down [to the park] on Saturday, but I didn't want to push my luck with them under the bonnet.
"There is a fan in the engine which would have cooled it down but it would have been quite warm and loud. But they looked healthy, they might be a bit deaf, but they were healthy," said the ice cream vendor.
The 53-year-old believes that the mother bird might have thought that his van was abandoned since during the colder months he leaves it parked in an industrial estate for long stretches of time.
Furthermore, he thinks that the fox and cat-proof van bonnet must have seemed a safe place to build a nest.
Yet, with business van insurance in place, the ice cream seller took to the streets carrying his secret load of wagtail chicks.
Luckily for the van owner, no damage had been done to the engine by the baby birds or their parents which might have caused a malfunction and subsequent crash.
If, unbeknown to the driver, the birds had damaged the engine or vehicle safety systems, he may have had a road traffic accident and had to make a claim on his ice cream van insurance.