Expecting a Delivery.

We are incredibly excited to announce that two of the White Storks here at Watatunga have made a nest and are currently incubating three beautifully large white eggs! Absent from Norfolk for over 600 years, these majestic birds are making a triumphant return across the U.K. thanks to several reintroduction programmes, most famously at Knepp Castle in Sussex.

The pair raucously greet each other when taking over nest duties by performing a dance and clattering their beaks together, a ritual which serves to enhance their bond as they are monogamous in the breeding season.

White Storks have a wingspan of seven feet and are a common sight in Continental Europe, however they were much desired as centrepieces of Medieval Banquets which may have led to their disappearance from our shores in the 1400’s.

White Storks have a wingspan of seven feet and are a common sight in Continental Europe, however they were much desired as centrepieces of Medieval Banquets which may have led to their disappearance from our shores in the 1400’s.

Organisations such as The White Stork Project are helping to make the sight and sound of these iconic birds a more common sight across our lands once more. White Storks are a long distance migrant, spending their winters as far away as South Africa, gathering in huge migration flocks of tens of thousands which can be particularly enjoyed in the Straits of Gibraltar during migration seasons.

Did you know that the oldest wild White Stork recorded was 39 years old, and was ringed in Holland, making these a very long lived bird. Such is their fame in folklore and history, in ancient Greece the punishment for killing a stork was death.