Storks return to ecosystem for first time in centuries thanks to Sussex rewilding projects
Knepp Estate and Wadhurst Park have been releasing chicks of rescued birds to encourage them to breed here
Two Sussex rewilding projects are helping storks return to our ecosystem for the first time in centuries.
The chicks of rescued, non-flying storks from Poland have been released at Knepp Estate and Wadhurst Park as part of a white stork reintroduction project across the South.
Since 2016, the scheme’s helped a population of storks re-establish itself for the first time in centuries – after disappearing due to hunting and habitat loss.
At Knepp, the storks are in a landscape that has been "rewilded" since 2000, with former agricultural land turned over to natural processes using animals including longhorn cattle, red and fallow deer and pigs, whose grazing and foraging help create a mosaic of scrub, disturbed ground and grassland.
Storks "love it"
White stork project officer Laura Vaughan-Hirsch said they "love it" at Knepp, where the rewilding process has created healthy soils and habitat and an abundance and diversity of insect life.
While they are primarily wetland birds, "they love mixed habitats, grasslands, woodlands and lovely big trees to nest in, anything that's insect-rich, worm-rich, that's their thing", she said.
The first chicks were born to birds nesting in the trees in 2020, and non-flying storks produced their first young in ground nests in the fox-proof enclosure in 2023.
This year Ms Vaughan-Hirsch said at least six birds born at Knepp have returned after an annual migration to Africa to nest in the colony, including one who has set up home in the same tree as her parents, and has been stealing nesting material from them.
40 fledglings pinned for this year
The team are expecting around 40 fledglings in 2025, including youngsters from the ground-nesting storks which are hand-fed pieces of fish to supplement food their parents can source in the pen.
The storks' success at Knepp shows that "sort the habitat out, the soils, insects, healthy water systems, and then your storks will come eventually," she said.
It’s hoped the birds will spread out from the estate and start nesting away from the current colony, raising the possibility that, in some areas at least, they will become a familiar sight in the skies, trees and on rooftops again.