Knepp visit: a few days in the savanna of West Sussex

Just got back from a great few days staying on the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. Once used for intensive farming and grazing the 3500 acre estate has now been converted into one of the largest rewilding projects in lowland Europe thanks to the vision of Charlie Burrell, the owner of the estate and now chairman of Rewilding Britain. After finding the heavy weald clay tough-going when it came to producing crops, towards the end of the last century Charlie was looking for alternative ways to use the land and generate income for the estate. Having always had a passion for wildlife (he was nicknamed 'Bug' as a boy) a friend recommended he visit the Oostvaardersplassen project in the Netherlands, and it was this trip that inspired him to create his own rewilding project at Knepp.

Purple Emperor log mural at the Go-Down

Viper's-bugloss in the bank next to the car park

So it is that what were once arable crop fields are now teeming with brambles, hawthorn and wild roses. Hedgerows which were once flailed within an inch of their life are spreading and thickening, and roaming freely amongst all of this are the grazers, the drivers of ecology, as resident ecologist Penny Green refers to them. Exmoor ponies, English longhorn cattle, Tamworth pigs and Red and Fallow Deer (along with native Roe) wandering around a landscape largely devoid of fencing, just as their ancestral species would have done some five millennia ago. After just a decade and a half of this project the 'wildlands' of Knepp are already morphing into something incredible.

It really is hard to believe this was arable farmland fifteen years ago

 

In a way completely alien in comparison to most of the countryside of this part of the world, and yet also strangely familiar - some visitors to the estate have commented they are old enough to remember when more of the countryside looked like this. A time when Turtle Doves, Cuckoos and other farmland birds were thriving. And so far it seems these species are doing very well at Knepp, along with a whole host of other native wildlife. An estimated eleven pairs of Turtles Doves bred last year, while the estate also boasts 2% of the national breeding population of Nightingales since they returned in 2010 - the first time they'd been seen for fifty years. There are also excellent numbers of Barn Owls, Tawny Owls and Little Owls, not to mention Ravens, Hobbies and Spotted Flycatchers, to name a few. It's not just birds that are doing well at Knepp, as it is also famously home to the largest population of Purple Emperor butterflies in the UK, thanks to huge swathes of sallow which have colonised the Oak-lined damp fields which once harboured only monocrops.

Exmoor ponies

Barn Swallow

The obligatory friendly Robin in the camp kitchen

Toad near our tent on the first night, presumably well-fed on the

proliferation of slugs

I had heard so much about Knepp and wanted to visit for some time so was delighted when my girlfriend Kate booked the trip as a birthday present. We'd originally been scheduled to go on a Purple Emperor safari on the Sunday when we arrived, but were informed last week that due to the rubbish weather they had not emerged yet. No matter, as they offered us a place on a general safari tour on Monday instead, plus a reschedued Purple Emperor safari on 2nd July. The site tour was great and really helped us get some idea of the scale of the project here. Penny drove us around much of the southern block in an old six-wheel drive Austrian army vehicle and explained the aims of the project - basically what does happen if a large area of land is left largely unmanaged, aside from the actions of grazing animals? She explained how certain plants dominated but are now being replaced by other species; it must be fascinating to see a landscape evolve year on year like this. Although less than an hour from home, I can only equate some of the landscape at Knepp to the plains of Africa; this was especially the case when we stumbled across occasional herds of cattle, or piglets sleeping in the middle of the muddy tracks.

Longhorn cattle

Tamworth piglets

Hammer Pond - a haven for bats, wildfowl and invertebrates

Under reptile tins we found Grass Snakes and Slow-worms, as Garden Warblers sang in the swollen hedges. Penny also told us how thirteen of the eighteen native bat species are found here, and campsite manager Ryan Greaves kindly loaned us a bat detector which enabled us to have some close encounters with a few. We unfortunately didn't manage to track down a Turtle Dove but it's just great to know they're here and doing okay, for now at least. Perhaps we'll find one when we revisit at the weekend. I was lucky enough to chat to esteemed butterfly expert Matthew Oates a few times during our stay who did manage to find some Purple Emperors in the past couple of days, despite the changeable weather. In fact, the three he saw on Monday were the first recorded anywhere in the country this year. Despite exploring yesterday we unfortunately didn't find any Emperors but we did see good numbers of Marbled Whites, plus my first Purple Hairstreak and Small Skipper of the year.

Cinnabar moth - thriving at Knepp thanks to unchecked spread of

ragwort, their larval foodplant

Purple Hairstreak

I really cannot enthuse enough about how brilliant Knepp is, and how exciting it is to see such a massive swathe of countryside ' going back to nature'. I eagerly await our return visit on Saturday and the many more visits we will, I'm sure, be making after that to see how the place develops over time.

Tawny Owl

Shalford patch diary, late May/early June

After a flurry of migrants at Shalford in the first half of last month my patch list had been stuck on 100 since adding Common Tern on 18th May and I was approaching the beginning of June wondering which species would come next. Hobby perhaps? Or Cuckoo at last? There's still a few relatively common things I've not caught up with here. One of the joys of patch birding, of course, is the element of surprise. Sometimes the last thing you can think of turns up when you least expect it, and I think it's fair to say that stumbling across a Brent Goose at the end of May was about the last thing I was thinking of when I headed out for a stroll around the patch on the morning of the 29th.

Having done one of my usual routes, entering by the gate near Dagley Lane allotments and doing a little circuit of Broom Meadow (I promise I'll put a map on here one of these days!) my girlfriend and I then headed upstream along the navigation towards Broadford Bridge. There were lots of joggers, walkers and cyclists out and about as it was already mid-morning by this point and I wasn't expecting much in the way of patch gold as we headed up the steps to the Railway Line Walk.

The trees have leafed up really quickly along here and there's now only a couple of spots where one can easily view Broadford Marsh to the south. At the first such viewpoint I stopped to have a quick scan and waxed lyrical to Kate about the muddy edges looking absolutely perfect for a wader right now but 'there's just a lone Canada Goose out there today', I said pointing to a bird huddled up asleep. Wandering along to the next gap in the trees I stopped for another quick look and saw that the bird had lifted its head and that its head was in fact entirely black, with a thin white neck collar. It also suddenly seemed a lot smaller now I could see the whole bird. 'That's a Brent Goose!' I exclaimed to Kate who tried to exhibit at least a little of the same excitement as me.

The words had barely left my mouth before the bird took flight and disappeared from view. Scurrying down the slope towards the horse field we managed to pick it up again as it made a couple of circuits low over the field, its gleaming white tail feathers now very obvious along with the white bars across the top of its wings indicating it was born last year. It occasionally looked as though it might come down in the field but soon gained a little more height and flew off over the trees to the south-east. It may well have come down again somewhere locally but that was the last I saw of it. The most remarkable moment on my patch to date and all over in a matter of minutes.

Only the fourth record of Brent Goose in Surrey in 2016 and only my second ever record in the county after two that flew south over Leith Hill early one morning last October. I know there have been May records before and Dave Harris had one in June over QE2 Reservoir several years ago, but still a very unusual record I think it's fair to say. 

 

Branta-based excitement aside, it's been largely business as usual these past couple of weeks. The bulk of the passage migrants seem to have moved through now, certainly in terms of passerines anyway, and the breeding resident and migrant species are now getting on with nesting and rearing young. Indeed, many resident species' young have already fledged, with plenty of juvenile Pied Wagtails around the Broadford area now. 

A stroll down the Railway Line Walk at the moment is soundtracked by the distinctive squeaking of young Great Spotted Woodpeckers in the nest. Warbler numbers appear to have stabilised at a reasonable number after the usual glut of new arrivals in April and early May, and there now seem to be three Garden Warblers holding territory between St Catherine's Lock and Broadford, along with at least two Sedge Warblers. Reed Warblers have been a bit more hit and miss and the last one I had on patch was singing by the Riff Raff weir on the 29th, which may well have been a migrant still coming through.  

Swifts seem to still be arriving in reasonable numbers and just this morning there were a dozen or so feeding low over St Catherine's Lock with at least two each of Swallow, House Martin and Sand Martin. Also this morning the first Black-headed Gulls for a while were noted, with three adults flying high south-west. Kingfishers have been a more frequent sight this past week or so flying up and down the river, raising my suspicions they are breeding locally. On the raptor side of things the resident Kestrels and Buzzards have been busy bringing food to their nests. Still waiting for that patch Hobby though!

A few more recent shots:

Grey Wagtail at St Catherine's Lock

Song Thrush

Stock Doves having a scrap

Beautiful Demoiselle