The Langford headline news from 2017... and some recent wildlife news

I thought I'd share some of the exciting stories that came out of Langford Lowfields last year...

• 5200 reed seedlings were planted in one day, by volunteers and staff during the annual North Midlands One Team jamboree event at Langford in September 2017.
• 520 visitors in a month, were recorded in February 2017, these counts are always an underestimate, but this is the highest monthly count to date.
• 139 species of bird were recorded at Langford during 2017. Of these, 64 species were recorded as breeding or holding territory during the breeding season, including the largest colony of breeding avocet in Nottinghamshire with 6 pairs raising 13 youngsters.
• The first ever nightingale at Langford, was heard singing in the woodland from 4^th-24^th May. Water shrews, stone loach, brent goose and water pipit were also recorded on site for the first time.
• The long-anticipated outfall sluice at Langford is now complete. We are claiming it as the largest freshwater control structure on any RSPB reserve, with the culvert pipe through the river flood bank measuring 50m in length and 2m in diameter.
• The new Langford sand martin bank has been built. 300 tonnes of sand were used in the new sustainable design that should provide nesting habitat for 200 sand martin pairs.
• Restoration of Langford Phase 3 is nearing completion, this will add 35ha of prime undisturbed reedbed habitat to the reserve, ideal for a range of exciting wildlife.
• We had a historic breeding season, with reedbed highlights including 2 pairs of breeding bearded tits, the only booming bittern in Nottinghamshire (so loud that could be heard 800m in the visitor’s car park) and a record 22 squealing water rails.

All great stuff and hopefully 2018 is going to build on all these success stories.

Over the past couple of days I've seen loads of great wildlife at Langford, yesterday's highlights included a small skein of pink-footed geese, a raven, a stonechat, 6 goldeneyes and a couple of redshanks, whilst today turned up a number of snipe, a jack snipe, a barn owl, 3 roe deer, a hare, a fox, a fox with a hare in its mouth and a late afternoon murmuration of 5000 starlings. Whether the starlings stick around remains to be seen, seeing as they deserted us last November just as their numbers reached about 30000!! It may be that the higher water levels now on the reserve have provided more safe roosting sites for the starlings and lured them back? but we'll have to wait and see.

Photo below; A reflective Langford Lowfields on an unusually still day (taken by Barrington Randle).