{"id":531812,"date":"2026-04-15T07:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/531812\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T07:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:47:08","slug":"rare-white-stork-spotted-on-norfolk-farm-near-norwich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/531812\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare white stork spotted on Norfolk farm near Norwich"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Edward Filby saw the birds on Easter Sunday while cultivating the land at Great Melton Farms, west of Norwich.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n “I have never seen one before, and I have been here 27 years,” he said. “It was a bit of a shock, especially on Easter Sunday.\n<\/p>\n

\n “The seagulls all came out as usual, but then I turned around and saw the storks. There were no tags or rings, so they probably migrated here.\n<\/p>\n

\n “They were here for about an hour, feeding on worms quite happily with the seagulls. Perhaps they were migrating and got a bit hungry.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Norfolk farmer Edward Filby spotted a pair of rare white storks at Great Melton Farms, west of Norwich (Image: Edward Filby)\n<\/p>\n

\n White storks are native to Britain, but disappeared as a breeding species in the 1400s.\n<\/p>\n

\n Conservationists say a combination of habitat loss and over-hunting contributed to the species’ decline – and there is evidence of targeted persecution during the English Civil War because the birds were associated with rebellion.\n<\/p>\n

\n White storks are still a rare sight in the UK. Although reintroduction projects in southern England have recreated a small breeding population in recent years, the birds are still classed as scarce migrants and reintroduced breeders rather than widespread natives.\n<\/p>\n

\n Rob Smith, Norfolk Wildlife Trust<\/a>‘s wilder landscapes adviser, said the same storks spotted at Great Melton were also seen on Friday April 3 at Blakeney Point on the north Norfolk coast, and their locations were logged as they moved south through Northrepps, Happisburgh and Carlton Marshes into Saturday April 4, on their way to Mr Filby’s field.\n<\/p>\n

\n “White stork are very rare to see in the UK, a very small number of wanderers from the continent are carried here on the right winds each year,” he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n “However in recent times, as there are more reintroductions of the species it’s a bit harder to tell if a bird spotted is a wild visitor from Europe, or reintroduced in the UK.\n<\/p>\n

\n “As these particular storks were not ringed, it’s as good evidence as you can get nowadays that they were one of our rare wild visitors from Europe.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Norfolk farmer Edward Filby spotted a pair of rare white storks at Great Melton Farms, west of Norwich (Image: Edward Filby)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edward Filby saw the birds on Easter Sunday while cultivating the land at Great Melton Farms, west of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-531812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}