Stork Migration Flyover
Staff and visitors enjoyed a surprise fly over by 70+ storks in August.
Staff and visitors were thrilled to watch approximately 76 white storks flying over WWT Arundel Wetland Centre in a slow whirling flock on the afternoon of August 14. The storks did little flapping as they seemed to be gliding on the thermals from the Offham hangar. See the video below.
The flock were over the reserve about 20 minutes, first sighted where the Lapwing hide is located, then meandering high overhead before disappearing over the Offham hangar towards Arundel Castle. Photo: Alec Pelling
The White Stork Project posted online that "...the storks from Knepp Wildling and Cotswold Wildlife Park are on the move! Keep an eye on the sky if you are in Sussex."
The storks are learning to migrate. This is the first year such a large flock taken to the UK skies. Large flocks haven't be seen in the last 100 years. By August 23 they had flown all the way to the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall. Previously one stork from Knepp has already gone to Europe and returned. Many more juveniles have flew to Europe and may return when they are sexually mature and ready to breed.
The storks are from the reintroduction project at the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. Together with two other private landowners in East Sussex and Surrey, and in partnership with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, Warsaw Zoo and Cotswold Wildlife Park, Knepp Estate is helping establish a breeding population of free-living white storks in Britain once again, since 2016. Before this white storks were extinct in the UK, following destruction of their natural wetland habitat, the fens, in the East of England.
According to the Knepp Estate storks have been particularly associated with the county of Sussex. The Saxon name for the village of Storrington, just nine miles from Knepp, was originally “Estorchestone”, meaning “the village of the storks”. A pair of white storks features on the village emblem. Other place names in the area, such as Storwood and Storgelond, evoke the stork’s historical presence.
Storks over Arundel from WWT Arundel on Vimeo.
