It always gets a bit quieter at this time of year in terms of bird life on the reserve. With the breeding season pretty much finished, those that survived are recovering, resting and moulting, the parents exhausted and the youngsters lurking in the undergrowth. There is still some good stuff to see though, avocets and common terns are pretty much guaranteed on site, along with various warblers still skulking around and great crested grebes elegantly gliding across the waters. Keep an eye out for the two families of pochard ducklings (an unusual sight at Langford) and if you're lucky you might spot a hobby or even beat our current oystercatcher count, with the record so far being 31 birds (on 20th July), which is the 2nd highest ever count for Nottinghamshire. There have been a few rarities seen recently with Mark D picking up a garganey on Phase 3 (31st July) and Andy M finding a disorientated common scoter right in front of the Beach Hut (27th July).
Our data entry volunteer Roger, is also our chief butterfly recorder and he's been diligently carrying out regular transects this year. I joined him on the most recent one (31st July) to see what's about. We had a brilliant couple of hours and picked up a number of species including purple hairstreak (on the big ash tree behind the car park info board), holly blue, painted lady and small copper. Green-veined whites seems to be the most abundant species on site at the moment and we spent a while honing our skills at distinguishing the 3 confusingly similar species of white butterfly that we get at Langford (green-veined, small and large). We had hoped but failed to see any white-letter hairstreaks, although some had been seen on the 27th July around the small elms on the woodland edge next to the Sustrans route, so keep an eye out for them.
There was a distinct lack of owl activity on our recent Owl & Bat night, held for the reserve volunteers, but we did have a lot of bat activity (bactivity?), with common pipistrelle, noctule, natterers and whiskered bats all being picked up using various pieces of bat monitoring kit. The latter two species are both new additions to the Langford Lowfields bat list.
Painted lady: