WHEN Gill McNamara threw an unwanted egg in the bin, little did she know there was a surprise waiting to be hatched inside it.

Gill, who owns a smallholding in Bwlchgwyn, said she had discarded the egg because there were no signs of life from it long after the time it should have hatched.

But she was in for a shock – in the form of a new feathered friend.

Not only did a chick hatch from the egg, it managed to beat the odds to survive inside Gill’s wheelie bin for a number of days thanks to a combination of the recent hot weather and a lot of luck.

An astonished GIll said: “Eggs usually take 21 days to hatch out, but on this occasion we had got up to 23 days and nothing had happened.

“I looked to check for signs of life and couldn’t find anything. I thought there was nothing happening inside the egg and so decided to discard it in the bin.”

Only when she went to throw out some leftover food five days later did Gill discover the chick.

She said: “I opened up the wheelie bin and was placing the rubbish in when I heard a small ‘tweet’ sound coming from somewhere.

“At first I couldn’t understand what was happening. Then I took a closer look and I found the chick there in the bin. I could hardly believe it at first.”

Gill carefully took the chick out of the bin and checked it over to see that everything was all right.

She found that despite its highly unusual start to life the bird was doing just fine. Now she has named it, fittingly, Wheelie Bin.

Gill said: “She must have hatched out a few days after being put in the bin, and didn’t need food or water for the first 24 to 48 hours.

 “Because the weather was hot, the bin would have acted as an incubator

“I have been able to put her with a surrogate mother who has two other chicks and everything is going great. They are getting on very well.”