As the fifth series of Clarkson's Farm premiered on Amazon Prime in June, fans were excited to see some new faces among the already well-loved cast. One of these people was 'bird lady' Hannah Bourne-Taylor, who helped Jeremy Clarkson identifying the birds living on his farm.
Hannah's devotion to birds was instantly apparent as she reacted with visible excitement upon spotting and hearing some uncommon species. She also left Jeremy completely astonished when she revealed she had permitted a bird to nest in her hair for 84 days.
But her love for birds isn't new, as she recently explained to her 195,000 Instagram followers that her passion for the animals made her walk through the streets of London naked - twice.
Taking to the social media platform, Hannah went on to share clips from her two walks, as she explained she'd done it to raise awareness for her government petition to protect Swifts from going extinct, as she urged the government to mandate swift bricks to all new build homes.
"When I realised that swifts’ existence depends on securing national-scale cavity nesting habitat (& the easiest way to do that is for the government to mandate swift bricks so that there is one in every house), I launched a petition," she explained in her post.
However, she soon realised that in order to get the government to consider a parliamentary debate, the petition needs to gain 100,000 signatures in just six months, something that Hannah felt was 'impossible for the ordinary person'.
"So that’s why I launched the campaign naked," she said.
"I hoped that by giving everything I had, there would be a strength in my own vulnerability - in my own conviction. No media would have covered a little bird petition if I had done everything the same but with my clothes on."
And it worked, as it got the attention Hannah was looking for, becoming the fastest-growing government petition at the time, having earned 109,896 signatures by the time it closed. This allowed her to do the walk once again with Lord Zac Goldsmith to attend a government meeting.
While the debate united several MPs across several parties, the Tory government still ended up saying no to the proposal. She added that Labour had 'strongly supported' the legislation, before blocking it last autumn. She added: "So the fight to save our swifts continues in England."
"If I thought it would actually work, I’d do it again," Hannah said.
A swift brick is a purpose-built, hollow brick embedded into the walls of homes and buildings to provide safe nesting spaces for endangered swifts, house sparrows, and other cavity-nesting birds. They seamlessly blend into masonry, require no maintenance, and counteract the loss of natural crevices caused by modern, tightly sealed architecture.
"Without swift bricks, it is likely that we will be the first country to lose a species that has existed for 50 million years," Hannah claimed in her post. "It’s a reasonable & urgently vital ask backed unanimously by eNGOs."
Scotland went on to mandate Swift bricks in 2026, and is now urging her followers to contact their local MPs and even the Prime Minister directly to urge them to mandate Swift bricks in the rest of the UK.
