A fledgling, centre, shelters from the weather after being tipped out of a nest.

A colony of nesting shags has had their homes destroyed after Eastbourne residents objected to the smell.

On Tuesday, Hutt City Council staff stopped the removal of trees that housed the colony after realising some of the nests had unhatched eggs.

Environmentalist Sally Bain said she could not believe what she was seeing, when she drove past Williams Parks and saw the trees coming down.

"I was gutted, just gobsmacked, I could not believe it."

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NICHOLAS BOYACK/STUFF The trees contain a number of large nests.

She recently showed a group of school kids "all the lovely birds in the trees" and said the council should never have given permission for the trees to be chopped.

Asset manager Aaron Marsh said the Days Bays Residents' Association had complained about the smell from the birds.

The council believed the nesting birds had moved on but, after hearing from Bain, two staff members were sent to have a look.

They confirmed there were nests with eggs and he said the contractors were told to stop work immediately.

Work removing the remaining trees would resume in January once the nests had been vacated.

NICHOLAS BOYACK/STUFF Contractors have been removing trees at Williams Park, Eastbourne, which are home to shags.

Marsh was thankful that Bain alerted the council promptly.

He said the council had acted in good faith and had stopped work, as soon as it was alerted to the problem.

Bain agreed the smell was a problem but did not believe that justified removing trees being used for nesting by native birds.

STUFF Rare king shag chicks are banded by Department of Conservation staff for research.

"Yep it does smell but so what, they are birds."

She had recently used a night vision camera to try and identify hedgehogs in the park and said one tree had 70 nesting birds in it.

Eastbourne Community Board chair Virginia Horrocks said there was a significant problem with the smell and bird droppings.

Cutting trees that had nesting birds and fledglings was unfortunate and the work should have been done after the birds had left.