Our Autumn trainees were treated to a rare and unforgettable sighting – a white stork along the River Dart. During last year’s Autumn 2025 traineeship, Colette and Alex spotted a striking bird overhead. As it drew closer, there was hesitation: was it a heron, an egret, even a swan? But after consulting the trusty Colins Bird Guide and speaking with Simon, they realised they had been lucky enough to spot a European White Stork.
“The bragging rights of this sighting lasted the rest of the traineeship.” – Alex
Moments like this stay with you. They’re a powerful reminder of why nature recovery matters. Species once lost are beginning to return, thanks to conservation efforts, offering glimpses of a richer, more abundant landscape in the making.
Colette describes how the events unfolded:
“Me and Alex were trying to find the pigs in the rewilding as we were on animal rounds, and we’d been looking for ages and were just saying how annoying it was that we hadn’t found them and wondering where they could have got to. Then we spotted this strange bird flying in the rewilding, back down the river. At first glance I assumed it was a heron, but then I realised it couldn’t be a heron – It was a bit smaller and had white wings with black tips. We decided to look it up in the bird book once we got back (we did eventually find the pigs).
Looking in the bird book, I couldn’t find any possible matches except the White Stork. But in the book it showed the White Stork’s range as out of Britain, so I thought it couldn’t be that… I was stumped!
Then the next day, we were doing a lesson on reintroductions with Simon, and he had brought in a big white stork model. On the subject of talking about the White Stork, I mentioned to him our mystery stork-like bird and described it, and he concluded that it was quite likely one of the reintroduced white stalks! I was so shocked and happy to have been one of the two people to have such a rare and important sighting, and felt very lucky indeed.
I like to think that maybe that day we saw the stork, the pigs were giving us the run-around because they knew there was something special out there for us to see. I’m very grateful to those hairy lil’ guys!”
Photo credit: Fercast
