Free homes in Docklands for the right kind of high flyers

Move over Canary Wharf, the real birds are moving back. London Docklands Development Corporation is providing 12 man-made nesting rafts - designed by the RSPB - to attract crested grebe, tufted ducks and terns to take up residence.

The first raft, dubbed the Docklands Heron, has been launched by Culloden primary school pupils in Poplar.

Others will be moored at East India Dock in Blackwall, Millwall Docks on the Isle of Dogs, and Royal Albert Dock in Silvertown. They will be monitored by the London Ecology Unit.

Coot, like this, and moorhen can be seen in Limehouse and Blackwall basins and there are swans in Canada water. Soon they could have company.

(Photograph omitted)