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Woman marches through London in body paint to save birds

PA Media Hannah Bourne-Taylor at WhitehallPA Media
Hannah Bourne-Taylor, from Oxfordshire, protested the decline of the bird population in the UK

A woman has marched through London almost naked and painted as a bird to protest the decline of the swift population.

On Saturday, Hannah Bourne-Taylor, 36, from Oxfordshire, arrived at Hyde Park wearing blue, black and white body paint applied by artist Guido Daniele.

She presented a petition supported by the Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Rewriting Extinction.

In 2018, she had nursed a bird back to health by letting it nest in her hair.

PA Media Guido Daniele (left) and Hannah Bourne-TaylorPA Media
The activist walked the city in body paint applied by artist Guido Daniele

Standing at Speaker's Corner in the park, Ms Bourne-Taylor spoke from the point of view of the swift population.

"We are screaming for you to help us, to look up to remember you share your home with other kinds," she said.

"Through these shared struggles we only ask for one thing, a safe place to rest after our perilous journey home."

PA Media Hannah Bourne-Taylor in Hyde ParkPA Media
Hannah Bourne-Taylor spoke from the perspective of swifts and said: "We are screaming for you to help"

The petition, named The Feather Speech, calls for "swift bricks" in all new housing developments.

This would mean buildings would need bricks with holes that can become nesting environments for four declining UK species: swifts, house sparrows, house martins and starlings.

'Facing national distinction'

Ms Bourne-Taylor then marched with protesters to Downing Street where she read out a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

In her letter, she said: "Please acknowledge our walls also belong to adventurers.

"Behind the theatre of this campaign, there is a serious issue of development [causing] biodiversity loss.

"These cavity-nesting feathered neighbours are not included biodiversity net gain measures despite all of them facing national extinction because of us."

A fledgling finch lived with Hannah Bourne-Taylor in 2018 until it was strong enough to return to the wild

More than half of many bird species in the UK have disappeared from the skies in just 20 years, partly because of a lack of suitable nesting sites, according to Emma Marsh, executive director for RSPB.

She urged people to sign the petition "to help ensure swifts and other species that have traditionally nested in the cavities of our buildings have a safe home to return to every year".

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