White Stork breeding success in the UK

It has been a record-breaking year for the White Stork Project with a total of 20 wild juvenile White Storks successfully fledging from 9 nests. Of the total, 19 came from 8 nests on the Knepp Wildland in West Sussex which I visited in mid-May 2022 …. see here and here.

Photo: White Stork at Knepp Wildland

As the wild juveniles vacate their nests, so the next stage of the White Stork Project has commenced. On 9th August 2022, 37 captive-bred White Stork juveniles from the Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens were released in to the White Stork enclosure at Knepp Wildland and allowed to explore their surroundings for the first time. They wasted no time in taking to the air to join a group of 20 adults who were flying in the vicinity at the time and there were quickly 50 to 60 birds thermalling in the air together before some of them drifted off south.

The White Stork Project has been incredibly successful in re-introducing this species to the UK. On 15th May 2020, the White Stork Project announced that a wild White Stork chick had hatched in the UK for the first time for over 600 years at Knepp Wildland …. see here.

I have both seen and successfully photographed large numbers of White Storks on my trips to Spain, northern Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, north east Poland, Estonia and the Netherlands.

In Spain in particular, I have seen huge flocks of thermalling White Storks and it is amazing that this can now be seen in the UK.

Slava Ukraini! …. Glory to Ukraine!

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