BTO Conference 2021: Session 1 Symphonious Spring – Rewilding and Birds at Knepp Wildland

Presenter

Penny Green/Tony Davis

Date

Monday, November 29, 2021 - 19:00 to 20:30

Places

Fully booked

We open our week of conference talks with Penny Green, ecologist and Tony Davis, lead ringer, sharing the journey of Knepp's rewilding project and the extraordinary results so far.

This event will be held online using Zoom.

Symphonious Spring – Rewilding and Birds at Knepp Wildland

In 2001 the Knepp Castle Estate started the transition from extensive arable and dairy farming to a pioneering process-led conservation project, and so began the rewilding of 3,500 acres in Sussex. Natural processes have been restored with large herbivores moving freely in the landscape, each species affects the vegetation in different ways which creates a mosaic of habitats from open grassland through to regenerating scrub.

Penny Green, Knepp’s ecologist, and Tony Davis, lead ringer, will share the journey of this rewilding project and the extraordinary results of the project so far, with talk of ongoing surveys, ringing and nesting effort, some headline success stories including Nightingales and Turtle Doves, and a couple of reintroduction projects. 

Penny is Knepp’s resident ecologist, managing the Knepp Safaris team, volunteers and research students, and co-ordinating the biological monitoring of the rewilding project. She studied countryside management at Brinsbury College and went on to work with the National Trust, the Sussex Wildlife Trust and then the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre.