A former horticultural nursery in Regent's Park has been transformed into a diverse mix of habitats, with a wide range of species already spotted ahead of its opening to the public on April 27.
When the Queen Elizabeth II garden opens in Regent's Park this month, the first people to visit the Royal Parks' £5m biodiversity project will quickly discover they are not, in fact, the first visitors.
That honour belongs to a hairy-footed flower bee, a breeding pair of geese, some dragonfly nymphs, a flock of grey wagtails, a prickle of hedgehogs, an armada of newts, a flutter of spring butterflies and a "very cheeky" fox.
The Royal Parks has transformed the former brownfield site - which was historically used as a horticultural nursery - into a 8,000 sq metre (two-acre) paradise for flora and fauna, bringing about an estimated 184% increase in biodiverse wildlife habitat.
Glasshouses, loose gravel and concrete have been replaced by more than 40 new trees, about 2,000 sq metres of wildflower meadow, more than 5,000 sq metres of climate-resilient plants and an extra 100 metres of native mixed hedgerow.
A large ornamental pond of naturally filtered water provides a new aquatic habitat for plants, insects and amphibians, while a former water storage tower - which offers visitors a panoramic view of the garden - has swift nesting and bat roosting boxes integrated into its new roof.
Since the garden was completed in January, a wide range of wildlife has already been spotted using the newly created habitats, including a fox that visits on an almost daily basis, says Matthew Halsall, the manager and landscape architect behind the project.
"It's very cheeky - it likes to chew through the guide ropes, which is a little inconvenient - but it is a very welcome visitor," he says.
Bees and butterflies are thriving among the 200,000 spring bulbs planted in the garden, and the park's longstanding resident hedgehogs - the last breeding population in central London - have been recorded exploring the grounds.
When Halsall began designing the garden three years ago, he was aware the site had the potential to become a haven for biodiversity in London. "It's right in the heart of Regent's Park, surrounded by many different habitat types, and therefore an important project in terms of wildlife-habitat reclamation."
But as well as increasing biodiversity, Halsall was tasked with creating "a beautiful and evocative" public garden to commemorate the late queen. The result is a space that invites visitors to observe and engage with a wide range of wildlife habitats as they move from an ornate, formally designed landscape towards a meadow planted with wildflowers.
"We call it a micro-mosaic of habitats, because there are so many different features within this relatively small, two-acre garden," he says.
Interconnected channels, or swales, ensure rainwater flows slowly through the garden, reducing the need for irrigation and creating very wet habitats in winter, which then become partially dry in summer.
"That's really good because it allows you to introduce plants that are specifically suited to that kind of environment," Halsall says.
One of the biggest challenges was ensuring the new garden did not eradicate existing wildlife habitats on the site. A survey found broad-nosed weevils, various species of rare spiders, brown tree ants, little dark bees and mullein moth caterpillars inhabiting the loose gravel around the greenhouses, so Halsall and his team decided to incorporate loose, gravelly surfaces into the design.
Non-native trees that are notably climate-resilient, such as Mediterranean stone pine, have been planted to protect habitats supported by native species such as Scots pine, which is threatened by global heating in the UK.
Elms cultivated to resist Dutch elm disease are also being introduced. Halsall says: "Elms support tussock moths and white-letter hairstreak butterflies, and they're an amazing food source for birds."
To attract swifts to nest in the water tower, which has been transformed by ironwork decorated with roses, thistles, shamrocks and leeks (the plants of the four nations embroidered on Queen Elizabeth II's coronation gown), a mounted loudspeaker will emit the sounds of the birds calling. "We also think the tower has high roosting potential for bats," he says.
Eight different species of bat live in London's eight Royal Parks, including pipistrelle species that are classified as 'near threatened' on Great Britain's Red List. Charlotte Cass, biodiversity manager for the Royal Parks, is trying to encourage the movement of these bats across green spaces in the city to ensure that breeding populations do not become isolated in one location, like the hedgehogs in Regent's Park.
"We're putting up bat boxes and creating lots of habitats where we think bat roosts are feasible, such as on particular trees in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens," she says.
Thanks in part to funding from the People's Postcode Lottery, the Royal Parks has an eight-strong biodiversity team consisting of ecologists, research officers and project managers. Volunteer conservation and ecology officers also organise more than 3,000 volunteers to support the parks' biodiversity projects and conservation work.
Last year, volunteers helped to plant 900 blackthorn saplings in sunny spots near ash trees in Regent's Park to create ideal habitats for brown hairstreak butterflies, one of the UK's rarest butterflies, which feed on the honeydew of aphids on ash trees.
"We discovered we had these butterflies in Regent's Park and they will only lay their eggs on the very edge of the tips of blackthorn tree twigs," says Cass.
This year, volunteers have planted 4,500 plugs of climate-resilient sphagnum moss in three 100 sq metre sites across Richmond Park, after a survey showed the keystone species - which is very rare in London and the south-east - was disappearing from the 800-year-old grounds.
"We got so close to losing it; there was just 0.08 sq metres of it left in the park. All it would have taken was one person disturbing it or a dog digging it up and we would have lost it entirely," says Cass.
She is hopeful that efforts to monitor and increase biodiversity across the capital's 5,000 acres of Royal Parks will help to build more resilient habitats for the wildlife that lives there. "We've got a really unique opportunity as an enormous green space in an urban setting; we can play a vital role in protecting London's biodiversity," she says.