The birds were killed on the roundabout intersected by Racecourse Road and Denton Park Road this week.

Roads and Maritime Services has since alerted its maintenance crews, who deal with the upkeep of roundabouts on the New England Highway, to check for animals ahead of work “after the ­unfortunate incident with a nest on the New England Highway.”

A RSPCA spokesman told the Mercury: “We will certainly look into this situation and we would like to see your photographs.” 

The sad deaths of the birds came to light after a resident had seen the female sitting on her nest for a few weeks before grass was cut on the roundabout on Tuesday.

But that afternoon, the shocked ­resident found the shredded remains of the plover, decapitated on her nest while trying to defend her chicks.

Naturalist and wildlife photographer Jim Thomson described the death of the bird and her chicks as terrible.

“These birds will defend their nests to the end and it is quite common to have them flying at you to protect their young,” Mr Thomson said.

“They will dive bomb people just as magpies do.

“I cannot understand how that plover and its nest were not seen and how this situation came to happen.

“It is really shocking and very, very sad.”

Mr Thomson said it was also common to see plovers on roundabouts where they were normally pretty safe.

It is illegal to harass a plover or to remove a bird from its nesting place ­without a permit.

Rutherford resident Ramona Cocco said: “Every day from my car window I watched the plover on her nest, where she sat with her chicks.

“Then on Tuesday, I saw that grass on the roundabout had been cut and my heart sank.”