Storks at Knepp
Today is my wife’s wedding anniversary 🙂 and she has a bit of a penchant for white storks. I think it is a Central European obsession. Anyway she said we should go visit the white storks at the recently rewilded 1416 hectare Knepp Estate in West Sussex. So I packed my little Lumix DMC-GX7 camera and a Tamron 14-150mm (28-300mm 135 equivalent) telephoto zoom, and we went to find some storks.
White Storks
The Knepp Estate is famous for its white stork reintroduction program. In 2020, white storks nested at Knepp for the first time in Britain, since they were hunted to extinction over 600 years ago. Knepp Estate is in partnership with the White Stork Project. The estate raises white storks in large pens until they are ready for release. The successful nesting in 2020 that you can see in some of the photos was a major milestone for Knepp. The Knepp Estate has become a model of biodiversity. It attracts a variety of wildlife and provided research material and inspiration for rewilding projects around the planet.
Stork webcam
There is a live feed from one of the nests on Youtube, that I have embedded here.
The camera is located here…
The camera is circled in red on the right. It’s not as clear as it might be becasue I was shooting towards the sun.
Owner
The Knepp Estate is owned by Sir Charles “Charlie” Burrell, 10th Baronet, and his wife Isabella Tree. They inherited the estate in the 1980s. Burrell, educated at Millfield and the Royal Agricultural College, initially farmed intensively before pioneering rewilding. Isabella Tree, is an acclaimed author and conservationist. She has documented their journey in books such as Wilding and The Book of Wilding.
Potted history
William de Braose, 1st Lord of Bramber, built the original Knepp Castle in the early 12th century as a fortified residence. It served as a royal hunting lodge. In fact, Kings John, Henry III, Edward II and Richard II all visited Knepp Castle. Knepp Castle was destroyed during the Civil War. In the 18th century, the estate was acquired by Sir Charles Raymond. Sir Merrik Burrell built the current Gothic Revival mansion between 1809–1812, with architect John Nash.
In the early 2000s, The current owner Charlie Burrell abandoned intensive farming practices, and started the current rewilding project. This involved restoring natural habitats and reintroducing various species to the estate, including its now infamous white storks.
Location
Knepp is approximately 12 km south of Horsham and 10 km south east of Billingshurst near the junction of the A24 and the A272. The main entrance is just off the A24, London-Worthing road. The address for the main visitors area is Worthing Road, Dial Post, RH13 8NQ. Ordnance Survey grid reference. TO 15011 20377. The car park is open from 07:00 to 19:00. There is no overnight parking and there is a 20 km/h | 13 mph speed limit on the access road.
Kings Mill
You can find more information about the windmill here, together with some infrared images I took of the windmill and its environs.
Links
Knepp Wikipedia page…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knepp_Wildland
Official Knepp website…
https://knepp.co.uk/
White Stork Project…
https://whitestorkproject.org/
