Rewilded park's birdsong inspires artists

Hazel Reeves records the sounds of nature in the rewilded 3,500-acre park

Music inspired by the birdsong from a rewilded 3,500-acre park in West Sussex has been created by two artists.

The Knepp Estate in Horsham, West Sussex - just 20 miles from Gatwick - has been hailed by David Attenborough as a pioneering rewilding project where wildlife now thrives.

Composer Damian Montagu and Hazel Reeves, a field-recording artist and sculptor, have created a piece called Knepp Dawn.

Ms Reeves regularly records the sounds of nature in the park, which is home to nightingales, turtle doves, peregrine falcons, ravens, red kites and skylarks.

Knepp Estate has become a  world-renowned example of rewilding

In the early 2000s, the owners of Knepp, Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree, decided to rewild their land.

Last year, Ms Tree told the BBC how they removed fences so animals could roam, allowed hawthorn, blackthorn, dog rose and brambles to take off and left oak saplings to regenerate.

The release of Knepp Dawn on Saturday has been timed to highlight International Dawn Chorus Day on Sunday.

The event, which is promoted by wildlife trusts on the first Sunday in May each year, sees people getting up early to listen to birdsong at daybreak and celebrate the natural phenomenon.

Ms Tree said she was delighted Knepp's dawn chorus had inspired the musical tribute.

She said: "The human response to what we hear in nature is a celebration in itself and reminds us that we, too, are part of nature's tapestry."

Recordings of morning birdsong compelled Damian Montagu to write the track

Mr Montagu has said it was Ms Reeves's recordings of Knepp’s dawn chorus, including "the very distinctive isolated sounds of nightingales, cuckoos, turtle doves, and white storks" that compelled him to write the track.

Ms Reeves, whose sculptures include Manchester's statue of Emmeline Pankhurst and the statue of railway engineer Sir Nigel Gresley at King's Cross, said Knepp showed "how nature can bounce back".