By mid-August, the birds began exploring beyond their nesting and release sites. Reports of large flocks came in from Kent to Dorset, with observers counting between 40–50 birds at a time, circling high on thermals. One large group made it as far west as Dorchester, echoing last year’s behaviour when young storks pushed all the way into Cornwall before looping back east to cross the Channel.

This year’s detour proved shorter. The groups reunited in the South-East, where they spent a few more days foraging in Kent and East Sussex before preparing to leave the country.

Two juveniles, both hatched at Knepp and carrying satellite tags, broke away from the main flock early. Instead of following the western detour, they took a direct route across the Channel from Dover, arriving in France on August 15th. Their choice of crossing point offers the shortest stretch of open water, where thermals offer less assistance. What followed, however, was unusual. Rather than following the typical western European flyway down through Spain, the two birds travelled eastwards across France and into Italy. Remarkably, these two brothers stayed together throughout the journey, soaring side by side over the Alps at recorded altitudes of 4,500 metres. On August 17th, for the first time in the project’s history, white storks from Knepp were recorded in Italy. After this extraordinary feat, the birds finally diverged. GBY9 remained in northern Italy, while GBY8, named “Jeff” in honour of a dedicated project volunteer, pressed on southward, recently reaching Sicily. Their next steps are a mystery, as this is not a typical migration route for western European storks.

Meanwhile, the rest of this year’s cohort left England later, on September 10th. They crossed from Dover to Boulogne-sur-Mer and quickly began to disperse across France, with some still in northern France, around Normandy, others have pushed further south to Bordeaux and towards the Spanish border.

A member of the public in France reported a sighting of GBZ8, one of the satellite-tagged birds from this year, accompanied by two more project birds alongside many other wild European storks. This demonstrates that, while satellite data suggests the flock has fragmented, some birds may still be travelling with their Knepp and CWP counterparts which lack the GPS devices and have joined migrating wild storks from the Continent.

On 24^th September, the first two storks crossed into Spain. One has lingered in the north, while the other is moving rapidly southwards, the classic route taken by previous years’ migrants via Spain into Morocco. From there, some young storks push on to wintering grounds in northern Africa, potentially reaching their final destination in December.