Reports galore.....

We have a growing library of survey reports, containing information about the wildland project and the ecology and wildlife at Knepp. See below for a list of those we have posted on this website, and click on the link to read the full report. We will add to this list as new reports become available. 

List of Surveys and reports 

Knepp Castle Estate 

Baseline Ecological Survey

by 

Theresa E. Greenaway

Record Centre Survey Unit,

Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre,

 Woods Mill, Henfield,

   West Sussex RH14 0UE  

For English Nature Research Reports

(Abbreviated)

For the full Natural England base line survey click on this link:-

http://www.english-nature.org.uk/pubs/publication/PDF/693.pdf.

Click Here for baseline survey report menu

 the full report can be ordered from Natural England 

Report number 693

Monitoring Strategy for Knepp Castle Estate Wildland Project

by 

Theresa E. Greenaway

Introduction The main aim of the Knepp Castle Estate Wildland Project is to put most of the Estate’s 3500 acres under as natural a grazing regime as possible, following a staged reversion from largely arable use since 2001 to the present and ongoing. The facilitation of natural processes is seen as the underlying rationale behind this aim.

Click Here for word document 

158 KB

Barn Owls & Herons (By Barrie Watson)

25 Barn owl nest boxes have been placed in some of the barns and on trees on the estate, and up to two pairs of this scarce and specially protected bird nest in most years.  The boxes are monitored (under English Nature licence) and thirty seven chicks and four adults have been ringed. At one site there was a new adult female in 1998, 2002 and 2005, and it must be presumed that in each case the previous female had died or been killed. The incumbent in 2005 was 2-year old bird originally ringed as a chick near Partridge Green. One of the 1998 chicks was found dead at Portsmouth in February 1999, and a chick ringed in 2004 was found as the male of a pair nesting at Wiston in 2005. 

2005 was a particularly good year for Barn owls, with two pairs at Knepp. The eggs of one female were predated, but she laid again producing three young. The other pair had six young.   

We are sorry to learn that nationally it was not been a great year for barn owls in 2006.  The Barn Owl Trust report that a cold March & a wet May caused numbers to drop by 75% nationally. Of the 2 sites on Knepp that are monitored by Dr Barrie Watson 5 chicks have or are about to fledge, so not a complete catastrophe.  Perhaps the abundance of habitat at our barn owl sites has helped us beat the national situation.

It is hoped that the management changes on the estate will result in more good hunting habitat, so that the Barn owls continue to do well.  

(see the results of the 2007 barn owls ringing)

(see more pictures - click here - 12 KB)

Heronry counts at Knepp  

There is a heronry in trees beside the Kneppmill pond. Since it was first noticed in 1975 the number of nests has been counted each year for the Sussex Bird Report and for the national Heronries Census run by the British Trust for Ornithology. Counts over the ten years to 2005 have ranged between 11 and 18 nests, with an average of 13.

The first national census of heronries in Britain was made in 1928 and has been repeated regularly ever since. It is probably the longest such run of biological information in the world.  

(Click here for the British Trust for Ornithology web site)

John Crix and Barrie Watson ringing  Knepp Barn Owls

Study Proposal

F. Gathorne-Hardy 

S. Brooks 

P. C. Buckland

Late Holocene Environmental Change in N Sussex: a proposal for multidisciplinary study of the lake at Knepp Castle

Introduction

The interaction between climate, pollution, land use and agricultural change is a vital component in the interpretation of past and future environmental change.  Whilst each site is unique in what it inherits from the past, integrated multidisciplinary studies provide key tools in understanding local changes, and building models which are applicable on a regional if not international basis.

What are required are more studies where the historical record is sufficiently precise to enable correlation between events evident in the palaeoecological record and documentary sources.  In south-east England there are few sites where a continuous sedimentary record for the past 500 years is available and there has been little attempt to study a period wherein the historical record is deemed sufficient.

(click here for full Study Proposal - 74 KB)

Looking for midge heads and 

Diatoms

SURVEY OF FLOODPLAIN WOODLAND 

IN CHARLWOOD WOOD 

and 

HARTSGRAVEL AREAS

by 

Neil A Sanderson

Survey Date 15/05/2008

Click Here  Charlwood wood

Click Here  Hartsgravel wood

Knepp 2008 

Monitoring Reports

Compiled By

Theresa Greenaway

wood lark found on Knepp

Click Here for Knepp 2008 monitoring reports

River Adur Restoration and Enhancement Report

Martin Janes

The River Restoration Centre is a not-for-profit information and advice centre, providing nonconsultancy services to the UK statutory environment agencies, river managers, land owners, practitioners and interest groups

Knepp Castle Estate is keen to maximise the biodiversity potential of the whole estate. Through discussions with Defra the estate will be entering the Adur and its floodplain into a Countryside Stewardship scheme. The reach to be entered is approx. 2.2km, with two main tributaries and their floodplains adding to the extent of land to be considered.

Various options for habitat enhancement and increasing biodiversity are apparent, from rewetting by the use of sluice boards to restoration of the old course of the Adur.

River Adur Floodplain Restoration 

Pre-feasibility study of river restoration

(click here for report - PDF 3097 KB)

River Adur flooding the moat around the Knepp Ruin - the river was canaled at some stage in its past

Waxcaps (and others) on the front lawn at Knepp

1. Golden Waxcap, Hygrocybe chlorophana - yellow

2. Snowy Waxcap, H. virginea - white

3. Fibrous Waxcap, H. intermedia (the rarest of them) - orange

4. Scarlet Waxcap, H. coccinea - red

5. Parrot Waxcap, H. psittacina - green, going orange, then yellow

6. Slimy Waxcap, H.irrigata (=H.unguninosa) - grey & slimy

7. The tiny orange one I mistakenly called Rickenella fibula was yet another waxcap, possibly Goblet Waxcap, H. cantharella

8. The yellow 'fairy clubs' were - Yellow Club, Clavulinopsis helvola

9. Golden Spindles, C. fusiformis (the bigger one)

10. Lilac Fibrecap, Inocybe geophylla (lilac)

11. Red Cracking Bolete, Boletus chrysenteron

12. The Blusher, Amanita rubescens

13. Brown Roll-rim, Paxillus involutus (at base of the cedar)

14. A milkcap, Lactarius species

15. Fibrous Waxcap, Hygrocybe intermedia

16. Hygrocybe russocoriacea

(click here for a page of Wax Caps - 13 KB)

 An holistic management plan

for a naturalistic grazing project 

on the Knepp Estate.

Feasibility Assessment

A report by:

Kernon Countryside Consultants

and Land Use Consultants

Click Here for PDF document 2,671 KB

(Note this is a large file and may take several minutes to down load)

Creating Naturalistic Grazing

In

Lowland England

A report by:

Kernon Countryside Consultants

and Land Use Consultants

Click Here for PDF document 

Small Mammals

Live trapping small mammals as a tool for 

observing landscape-scale changes 

on the Knepp re-wilding area

May 2008

A report by:

James Goodrum

Click Here for MS word document (327 KB)