The recent cold spell has held up the arrival of swallows, house martins and swifts this year, according to LIPU (Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli), the Italian Society for the Protection of Birds.

For the last few years, LIPU has denounced a steady decrease in the numbers of these birds, symbols of spring. One of the reasons is the reduction of suitable habitats, especially in the case of the house martin, which builds its nest of mud and straw under overhanging gables and cornices. These features have largely disappeared in modern buildings, leaving less and less space for the birds to reproduce.

Efforts to make amends, however, are arriving from some unexpected areas. The abandoned electricity plant ENEL at Piombino (Tuscany), earmarked for demolition, is creating an alternative structure to house the colony of two hundred nesting birds concentrated under the eaves of the former engine-room. ENEL, with the backing of a group of conservation partners - the WWF Nature reserve of Padula Orti-Bottagone, the Italian Swallow and Swifts Group and the Swift Conservation organization, has commissioned architect Riccardo Stoppioni to build a replacement steel structure, complete with a string of artificial nests for the birds.

Similar initiatives are being carried forward in Parma with tunnel entrances to garages which reproduce the former nesting places in farm barns. In addition, the medieval Hospital and desecrated Church of San Francesco Del Prato is being adapted to accommodate the birds by opening up all the old gaps which were in the facade and were subsequently blocked. These holes, however, will only be big enough to let the swallows use them and not the pigeons, which would otherwise move in and take over the nesting spaces!

Info: www.lipu.it