The right house for every (bird)!

The breeding season is in full swing. Depending on the bird species, different structures are chosen for breeding: The blue tit, for example, looks for a tree cavity, the lapwing for a hollow on the ground and the blackcap builds its nest from grasses and thin branches in the bushes. If species are to be specifically promoted, attention must be paid to the right nesting aid.

The nature and species conservation team at Mull und Partner supports many projects with nature conservation expertises. Whether it's changing the land-use plan for the conversion of an old power station site, applying for the demolition and construction of a new hotel complex to be removed from landscape protection, developing a maintenance concept for area PV plants or making proposals for nature-friendly construction processes for railway infrastructure projects.

We are involved right from the start: a nature conservation potential analysis provides information on the relevance of the project under nature conservation law. The mapping requirements and the expert reports to be prepared are derived from this. Once the biotope types, animals and plants have been recorded by our experts, the desk work begins. The affected species have to be identified, the severity of the impact assessed and everything evaluated according to defined methods. This results in the measures that need to be taken to minimise the impact on animals, plants, soil, water, climate/air and the landscape or to compensate for it elsewhere. Depending on the impact, felling applications must be submitted, resettlement programmes developed, protective measures such as amphibian fences erected and monitored and possibly even exemption permits applied for.

In order to exclude the risk of killing or harming individuals and thus the prohibitions according to §44BNatSchG, we usually also accompany the construction work as environmental (or soil protection) construction supervision.

In particular, so-called early compensatory measures (CEF measures) often consist of creating suitable breeding sites for animal species that are displaced from their traditional breeding grounds by the project. These can be bat boxes, hedge planting for birds that breed in bushes or dormice, colony boxes for house sparrows, but also special boxes for owls and birds of prey. In this example, nesting baskets have been installed for the long-eared owl, whose breeding sites will be lost as a result of construction work.