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 restores nature. All of us at Knepp are now changing our default search engine to Ecosia – and I do recommend you do too. You can help restore the planet from your desk! Find out more at www.ecosia.org

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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 roots in the soil and attracting pollinators through to natural predators. We touch on the importance of watching and learning from the nature around us, and we hear about some of the grower team’s aspirations for the future.

We marvel at Rosanna’s carrots (a proud moment) and take in the beauty and scale of the tomato tunnel. Rosanna’s enthusiasm and love for growing is so infectious you’ll be inspired to get growing yourself.

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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 purple emperor and others begins to improve in Britain.

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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 holds for this pretty, shy bird and a moment to enjoy the soft purring song to send us on our way.

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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, desiccating flies, cryofreezing flies, and most importantly…how we wouldn’t have chocolate without flies. 

Fly sample collections being made by Erica at Knepp Wildland through malaise trapping are providing some fascinating data through genome sequencing.

This episode may leave you with more questions that answers but you will certainly have some fun facts to share with your friends, and a new respect for flies.

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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 the rehabilitated storks’ ingenious ground nests and Laura brings us up to speed on all the exciting news including the first successful return of a migrant bird and an announcement about the forthcoming inaugural Storrington White Stork and Nature Revival Festival, coming up in May 2025.

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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 and upcoming surveys and how this has got Matt eager and ready to leap into the season ahead.

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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 so special for these old giants. 

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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 some of our oaks. The boxes have been filled with sawdust that’s inoculated with different rot fungi to provide a rot-hole habitat to lure in saproxylic (deadwood) insects – these are some of our rarest insects. The contents will be sampled in the autumn and DNA analysis will show what’s been utilising the boxes.

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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 explore what's happening nationally and the big decisions that need to be made as enclosed beaver families across the country are expanding.

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