Swift Nesting Brick Box, Terracotta Breeding Bird House for Brick or Rendered Walls

Product Information

Duncan and Jenny’s aim is to make people aware that despite inhabiting a highly populated world, ways need to be found of nurturing and protecting wildlife for this and future generations. They strongly believe that bird and bat boxes are an excellent way of providing for wildlife in every building. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following: It’s fine to fit bat houses at any time of the year, however it makes most sense to complete your installation by early Springtime, as it will stand a chance of attracting bats emerging from their local hibernation, also other species who have wintered abroad. The founders would like to thank friends and family for all their support and belief in our venture to get us to where we are now. Thank you!

Duncan and Jenny McCutchan have combined their experience of 25 years in the building trade plus years of installing and monitoring barn owl nest boxes in East Sussex. During that time, they have seen building styles offer fewer and fewer opportunities for wildlife so they wanted to find a way to reverse this trend.

Wienerberger reference projects

Eagerly anticipated by many, it is a thrilling moment when you first hear the distinctive screech or catch sight of the long, tapered wings of the first swifts arriving for the summer. For thousands of years they have looped to the British Isles from Africa to raise the next generation, taking advantage of the long daylight hours in the north and the opportunity to scour the skies for insects from dawn to dusk.

The table below covers the most common species that are likely to be attracted, together with siting guidance. It is not an exact science and it may be found that species other than the ones which may be targeted take up residence instead. It can also take time for birds and bats to start using the boxes. Species The fitted bird or bat box is not deep enough to bridge the cavity and will not affect the insulation properties of the building.The hedgehog box should be placed in a quiet, shady, sheltered, dry place with plenty of protection vegetation around. Avoid having the entrance point north, north easterly to prevent cold winds entering the house.

Our bumble bee boxes provide a weatherproof, dry, dark space for the colony to live in and ensures bees and their larvae are contained entirely within the specifically designed box. Bumble bees prefer to nest in undisturbed areas and do not like prolonged exposure to the sun as this can heat up the nest too much so our bee boxes should be situated with this in mind and at least 1.5 metres above the ground. Being fitted in the non-load bearing outside skin (typically of a cavity wall), no lintel is required, nor any modification to the building design. It is not advised for boxes to be fitted within 750mm of windows or lintels. If you are fitting clusters of boxes together (mainly swift boxes) it is advised lintels should be fitted. Bats do some vital work in our ecosystem, from eating insects and bugs (the UK’s bat species eat nothing larger), thereby offering crops and gardeners some assistance, to pollinating plants. In fact, many plants which bees tend to avoid will be attractive to bats for nectar. Bat guano is a terrific fertiliser too, so bats are worth cultivating. Originally bats would have lived in trees and other natural shelters, however more recently they have evolved to live in older houses, churches (as in ‘bats in the belfry’), barns and other farm buildings. Modern construction materials and methods offer fewer (if any) opportunities for bats to roost, so it’s really important to make special provision in new developments in the right locations. The Wienerberger Habibat range of integrated bat boxes are solid boxes made of insulating concrete that provide an internal roost space, ready to be integrated into the fabric of a building as it is built or renovated. Suitable for most species commonly found in the UK, the single chambered unit features an integrated V system to increase the surface for bats to roost against, while allowing freedom of movement. Many of the UK’s garden birds are struggling to maintain numbers, house sparrows being an obvious species that has suffered a serious decline in recent times. Providing bird houses is hugely important for giving such birds the best chance of rearing their young and surviving the winter in as safe an environment as possible. Another relatively little known effect of encouraging songbirds is the beneficial effect on our own (human) wellbeing, despite many studies over the years which have proven a link between audible bird song and good mental health. One example is ‘ Urban Mind: Using Smartphone Technologies to Investigate the impact of Nature on Mental Wellbeing in Real Time’, published in BioScience 10th January 2018.We will only pass on information about you as an individual (as opposed to aggregate information) to third parties to enable us to perform services requested by you or with your prior consent. We will only pass on information about you as an individual (as opposed to aggregate information) to third parties overseas to enable us to perform services requested by you. Anywhere between around 3 and 6 metres (10 to 20 feet) above ground level is fine. Bats like to feel safe from ground based predators such as cats. By providing an environment in which the birds feel warm and safe, that’s large enough for them to move around and raise a family, and by using an entrance aperture which is only just large enough for the target species to use, thereby eliminating use by larger (possibly predatory) birds e.g. magpies. The body is made from recycled polypropylene – an extremely tough and durable material used in construction for cavity trays and damp proof courses. This means the box lets in minimal amounts of moisture in adverse weather conditions making it such a highly desirable dry winter roost. As the plastic will be exposed to virtually no sunlight (if any), degradation is effectively eliminated. As a result the boxes are expected to last for the lifetime of the building in which they are housed – an important feature in terms of environmental planning.

A brilliant idea to help some of our declining bird populations and give an added enjoyment to your home! The right internal surface – well designed bat houses come with rough interiors, allowing the bats to hang while they sleep. This product makes an ideal bat house for most of the UK’s bat species, including Pipistrelles, who will use it for roosting, hibernating and (in maternity roosts) bringing up their young. The entrance hole and internal design can be tailored to suit different species of bat e.g. Bechstein’s and Serotine. Bug and minibeast provide an important food source for other animals like birds and bats which are essential to pollinating our flowers and crops and are useful workers when it comes to decomposition and giving us nutrient rich soil.In the UK, bat houses should generally face East, South or West, and positioned such that they are in sunlight for several hours a day to keep the roosting area warm. Hedgehog numbers in the UK have been in decline for over two decades and in 2020 became classified as vulnerable to extinction. Building developments on natural habitats and changes to farming practices have seriously impacted the number of hedgehogs in the UK, along with pesticides killing the hedgehog’s natural diet of slugs, insects and worms.