Wildlife Success Stories from Knepp

Under the stack for Gatwick Airport is not the place you would expect to find a breeding hotspot of the UK’s fastest declining bird species, and yet this is now one of the best sites in the country to find the turtle dove. This is the location of the Knepp Estate, a pioneering rewilding project that aims to return the land to a landscape which is no longer managed by people. The results of this work speak for themselves, and we have written some of the most dramatic success stories below!

Knepp have two beavers (Brook and Banksy) in a big pen in the Southern Block. They had been showing different behaviours to normal where they had started taking shoots into the lodge (name for a beaver’s den). The ecology team had put camera traps up as well as surveying the pen regularly for anything, but saw nothing until the last week of the 2023 Opwall Field Course. Penny, Knepp’s senior ecologist, spotted a kit (a young beaver) one evening, and then managed to record two kits playing on a camera trap. This was great news for the project, as it means the two adults are happy and settled in the pen. The beavers are a key project for Knepp, as they are brilliant ecosystem engineers. They have completely changed the environment of the pen they are in by damming a stream and making a wetland habitat, dramatically altering the species that can be found there too. Their dams have decreased pollutant levels and reduced flooding further downstream. The birth of these kits at Knepp means beavers have reproduced in Sussex for the first time in 500 years!

Turtle dove numbers have declined by over 90% in the UK since the 1970s, and Knepp is one of the few places they are actually increasing. This is because the scarlet pimpernel flower can be found at Knepp. This is a ruderal plant, which means it grows well on disturbed ground. One of the species that was introduced as part of the Knepp wilding project was the Tamworth pig. This pig replicates the impact that the wild boar would have had on the landscape by rootling for their food. This is where they stick their snouts in the ground and essentially plough the earth for roots and shoots to eat. This disturbs the ground and enables the scarlet pimpernel to grow, resulting in the unexpected outcome of the turtle dove numbers improving at Knepp. Volunteers on the Opwall field course at Knepp were treated to the rare sound of a turtle dove calling every morning.

Purple Emperors are the UK’s second largest butterflies, and the largest colony of them in the UK can be found at Knepp. They were thought to be a woodland species, but it is actually the sallow scrub that has brought them here. The females lay their eggs on sallow, but unfortunately there is not much scrubland across the UK, which means the butterflies are struggling to reproduce. Knepp also has a lot of large oak trees which is also beneficial to the Purple Emperors as the males display in oak canopies. Their success at Knepp has brought new understanding into the species’ habitat preferences and its different behaviours. Volunteers on the field course saw lots of individuals last summer, and we even had one on our camp toilets!

Invertebrates are some of our most important ecosystem drivers and volunteers this year got to see plenty! In addition to our sweep net surveys we also put up malaise traps and light traps. Light traps are ideal to find out what moth fauna you have in an area and some of our highlights this year included Poplar Hawk Moths, Black Arches, Ruby Tigers, July Highflyers, Blood Vein and the Canary-shouldered Thorn. We were also lucky enough to find caterpillars from several species including Puss, Buff Tip and White-marked Tussock. In addition to having some of the best names in the animal kingdom, moths are important nighttime pollinators, as well as an important food source for bats and birds. Studies have shown they also visit many plants that are ignored by daytime fliers and so they are a key part of ecosystem pollination systems. Light traps are set in the last hour before sunset and then we wake up early to empty the trap. The moths at that point are sleepy which allows us to get a good look at them and make a list of what we’ve found.

Photo by Elen Griffith

Knepp is one of the 2 sites involved in the White Stork Project which aims to reestablish a breeding population of wild White Storks in the south of England. In 2020 their efforts paid off when the first wild storks bred in the UK for 600 years! In 2023 Knepp’s storks laid a total of 45 eggs and they are starting to expand their breeding range across the estate. The eggs resulted in 29 chicks hatching in the spring, which were then fledging throughout the Opwall summer season there. The volunteers were treated to brilliant views of these majestic birds soaring overhead, as well as choruses of beak-clacking signifying that a mate is returning to a nest!

Why not join us down at Knepp and see what amazing wildlife you can spot!

Title photo by Dave Bird