London's Swifts The Bio-Diverse Building

Turning ordinary buildings into wildlife havens

The Built Environment - not desert, but sea cliffs or mountainside!

The "Built Environment" is a tough place for wildlife. Skyscrapers, office blocks, stone and brick facades, tarmac and concrete pavements and roads, harbours and wharves, what wildlife can cope with them? The answer is that many wild species accept them for what they are, hard, rocky and windswept places not unlike wind and rain-lashed coasts, cliffs and mountains.



Attractive, beneficial birds that specialise in coast and rocky or mountain habitats, and do well in the built environment are Peregrine Falcons, Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Black Redstarts, Wagtails, House Martins, House Sparrows and of course Swifts too!

It just needs a little thought and effort to transform a building into a place they can inhabit. Swift Conservation has assisted with many such schemes and can help you too. Contact us via this link Contact Swift Conservation

Minor modifications that can turn a lifeless site into a wildlife oasis

Above, this plant room wall on top of an office block in London's West End houses nine Schwegler "bat tubes" for Pipistrelles and two Schwegler open-fronted nestboxes for Wagtails or Black Redstarts. These species are present in this area; it is hoped these facilities will encourage them to breed and roost over winter too.   Photo © Edward Mayer

Above, details of the Open Fronted Nestbox and below, the Bat Tubes, set into the walls. Similar boxes are available for housing bees and other useful insects.
© Schwegler gmbh

Left: Simple and cheap. Adding pools to "green" roofs provides a vital source of drinking and bathing water for birds, mud for nest building, as well as supporting a bigger range of invertebrate life, and so more food for small birds and bats.
Photos © Edward Mayer

Building Green pdf download Download a free copy of "Building Green" the GLA's guide to using plants on roofs, walls and pavements

Living Roofs & Walls pdf download Download a free copy of "Living Roofs and Walls" Design for London and the GLA's Technical Report

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