The Knepp Wilding Podcast

It’s been a bumper summer for ragwort, the plant folks love to hate. In this month’s Knepp Wilding Podcast, Isabella Tree unearths the truth about this spectacular native wildflower with ragwort specialist, Mick Crawley. Is it a toxic killer or a bountiful source of life? And what happens when you pull it up? Could trying to eradicate it actually be helping the plant to proliferate? The Knepp Wilding Podcast is generously supported by Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees and res...

It’s an early morning start for episode 38, as we meet with wonderful grower Rosanna before the heat of the day kicks in, and before she and the rest of the team get to work on the day’s harvest. We talk about the incredible transformation of a three-acre pony paddock to a bountiful market garden, producing delicious seasonal veg for the Knepp Wilding Kitchen and Shop. We consider their regenerative approaches to growing, everything from encouraging good soil health to keeping living ro...

Join Knepp’s Isabella Tree and an over-excited Matthew Oates, the purple emperor’s No 1 devotee, to celebrate a bonanza year for this rare, beautiful and thuggish butterfly. Numbers at Knepp have broken all records and Matthew takes us to three of the emperor’s favourite haunts in the hope of catching a last glimpse of His Imperial Highness as the flight season draws to a close. Matthew explains why this has been the butterfly year of his life and his hopes for the future as habitat for the p...

Join us on a beautiful June evening for episode 36 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast. We’re joined by Knepp’s lead ecologist, Matt Phelps, deep in the scrubland to learn all about one of the jewels in Knepp’s crown…the rare and beautiful Turtle Dove. We talk about migration, how they’re doing in Europe following a recent hunting ban, what we’re learning about them at Knepp and the features they need in a landscape to successfully nest. We end this episode by touching on what the future hold...

Buckle yourselves in for episode 35 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast with the vivacious Erica McAlister, Principle Curator for Diptera and Siphonaptera (that's flies and fleas to you) at the London Natural History Museum. Erica has made it her life’s work to make flies cool - her enthusiasm has inspired so many people to love and value flies during her career. Erica teaches us a lot of new things about flies: we talk about twerking flies, egg-bombing flies, migratory flies, cheesey flies, ...

It’s episode 34 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast and we return to the White Stork Project, five years on, to hear the latest news with White Stork Project Manager, Laura Vaughan-Hirsch. We tune in to the live stork nest camera to check in on Ania and Bartek, a breeding pair bonded since 2020. We talk about this year’s nests and meet up with long-serving volunteer Silla to hear about what she does for the project and what the project means to her. We have a wander around the pen to visit some of ...

In episode 33 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast we meet Knepp’s brilliant new Lead Ecologist, Matt Phelps. We chat about the exciting news, released just a few hours before, of wild release licencing for beavers and how this might affect the Knepp beaver family. We discuss the abundance of Hawfinch here over the winter and speculate what opportunities are made available to them by the habitat that's emerged from the rewilding here at Knepp. As spring approaches, we talk about ongoing ...

It's episode 32 and we’re joined by Tom Burns, Knepp’s marvellous ranger and woodsman. We learn what Tom gets up to in his daily work at the Knepp Rewilding Project - everything from managing the huge team of fab volunteers to managing the public rights of way across the estate. Not to mention collecting stork nesting materials from the coppice! We spend most of our time, however, discussing Tom's main passion and that is trees - ancient and veteran ones in particular, and why Knepp is...

Episode 31 is a short n’ sweet one which sees the return of Dr Matt Wainhouse to Knepp, in his exciting role as Natural England’s Fungi and Lichen Senior Specialist. We’re also joined by Tom Burns, Knepp’s fantastic ranger and woodsman. We catch up with Matt about the findings from his tree-coring project at Knepp back in 2021 (check out episode 14) and also learn about a new project that he’s trialling at the moment. We join Matt whilst he’s fitting some curious wooden boxes to ...

It's episode 30 so it's time for a beaver project update! We’re joined again by national beaver specialist, and all-round good egg, Mark Elliott. We talk about the progress of the Knepp beaver enclosure and its hard-working inhabitants, and what they've been up to since our last beaver podcast back in November 2022. Following a very wet winter and spring the robust beaver dams are holding up well and are helping to store a huge amount of water, slowing the flow in heavy rainfall events. We ...

It’s Episode 29 and we’re in the beaver pen with a gaggle of delightful artists who help us draw a different perspective on rewilding. Led by the inimitable James Ort this collective is bringing rewilding to life through different mediums – clay and metal, watercolour, pencil and oil, freestyle stitching, printmaking, needlefelt and environmental art. Hearing from these artists about their work, and how art in the field can heighten one’s observation of nature, is inspiring. Mak...

Episode 28 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast transports us far away from Knepp and into the beautifully rugged landscape of Asturias in Spain. We’re visiting stunning Wild Finca to meet a family, inspired by Knepp, making a big change on their 13-hectare landholding. They’re using local herbivore breeds, Asturcon horses and Casina cattle, to create a wildlife oasis and a place where people can be inspired to make positive changes for nature. We talk to Luke Massey about his exciting vision for th...

Episode 27 finds us in the field with Rosie Moss from the wonderful Newt Conservation Partnership and Shaun Hancox, digger-driver extraordinaire! The Partnership have been harnessing funds from developers through the NatureSpace District Licensing Scheme to create high quality habitat for Great Crested Newt, and a whole host of other wetland species. We’re delighted to have recently had 12 impressive new ponds dug at Knepp through this scheme. Tune in to hear about the new ponds at Knepp and ...

Episode 26 of the Knepp Wildland Podcast takes us on the trail of Micromys minutus, the Harvest Mouse, with fellow mammal appreciators Ryan Greaves and Laurie Jackson. Weighing in at just six grammes this tiny Biodiversity Action Plan species seems to be in good numbers at Knepp, mostly concentrated in the habitats around the wetland areas. We talk about how to find their nests, what they feed on and their speedy life cycle. Join us as we set some traps at dusk and find out what we catch! Sen...

Join us on episode 25 where we learn about a ground-breaking microclimate project with Assistant Professor Rebecca Senior and PhD student Cameron Goodhead from Durham University. They’re here at Knepp to investigate the microclimates provided by the complex structure of vegetation that has emerged through rewilding. A variety of remote data-loggers will be deployed in different vegetation structures and, combined with drone footage, LiDAR data and thermal images, will help to collect evidence...

It’s Episode 24 and I’m joined by the brilliant artist, Hazel Reeves, to hear how she has been inspired by the Knepp soundscape to extend her artistic practice beyond her studio. Hours before many of our alarms go off Hazel can be found sitting quietly in the Knepp Wildland taking sound recordings of the dawn chorus and one of her favourite birds in particular: the Nightingale. We talk about aberrant Nightingale songs, the joy of clattering White Stork bills and how soundscape eco...

To celebrate 10,000 downloads of our first ever episode, The Nightingale, I'm delighted to be able to offer you a bite-size version of it! It seems apt to be able to release this at this time of year as the Nightingale is back at Knepp in brilliant numbers and is singing away in the scrubland. Many thanks indeed go to Rob Burns for distilling the magical essence of the Nightingale in to a short podcast. Enjoy! Send us a message or leave a comment Find out more about Knepp on our websi...

It’s episode 23 and we are taking a blustery walk with some fascinating researchers from Oxford Archaeology and Historic England… we are stepping back in time! We discuss an innovative and collaborative research project called ‘Rewilding Later Prehistory’ exploring Bronze Age and Iron Age ecology from around 4,500yrs ago to 2,000yrs ago. Where the focus of this period is usually based around human progress, this project aims to discover more about the wildlife that would have been foun...

It’s a wet and wild episode 22! We’re joined by national beaver specialist, Mark Elliott, down in the Knepp beaver pen after a night of heavy rain. We marvel at the amazing work of the beavers - how they’re creating the most wonderful wetland area that’s holding on to water during winter floods and providing an oasis for life during droughts. We tap into Mark’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the natural history of beavers in Britain: why they became extinct, how they’re making an incredible...

Episode 21 finds us at an uplifting event surrounded by a hundred young people: a youth rewilding summit held at Knepp in September in collaboration with Heal Rewilding and Young Wilders. The event was created by young people to connect and inspire other young people with a passion for rewilding, and to give the next generation of rewilders a platform and an opportunity to drive change. Join us to hear more about the day from the brilliant people who organised it, and some of the enthu...