It's definitely starting to feel like the changing of the seasons in the last couple of weeks, with some cooler nights and the disappearance of our summer migrants - notice the distinct lack of reed and sedge warblers recently? However, the onset of autumn brings other wildlife to the site. Wader passage well underway now and we have had some excellent sightings throughout August and early September. Wood sandpip…

Every month, long-term Langford Lowfields volunteer Stuart Carlton carries out our Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) count. It provides an excellent record of the species we have on the reserve and gives us a good indication of how bird numbers change from year to year, as well as how they change with the seasons. The latest survey carried out on 23/07/2017 produced the following counts:

Mallard

73

Te…

It has felt like spring has been coming and going over the last couple of weeks, with some beautiful sunny, warm days, followed by dismal, cool and windy ones! Nevertheless, our summer migrants are starting to trickle in and resident species are forming territories and beginning their breeding attempts.

The first sand martins were seen on the 16^th March over the visitor trails, followed by the first avocets back on the…

As always, February has been a busy month over at Langford with our winter woodland and scrub management work programmes in full swing, before drawing to a close now at the end of the month.

This year, we have focussed a bit more on the woodland. Here we have selectively thinned some sycamores to create a glade in the middle of the woodland and some ‘scallops’ – curved open areas along the woodland edge. This thins the…

Our regular WeBS'ers Stuart and Matt completed January's count on the 12th. The mild weather is keeping wildfowl numbers lower, however good numbers of wigeon are present, goldeneye are starting to display and the return of shelduck after their moult migration gives an early indication that spring is not too far away! Here are the results....

7 mute swan

1 shelduck

76 wigeon

8 gadwall

124 teal

88 mallar…

Much like the previous two months, January has been dominated by bearded tits! The birds are still showing well from the boardwalk, most regularly at the western end, however they have been seen or heard from just about every patch of reed on the two visitor trails. And with at least two bittern on site and the appearance of a female marsh harrier at the beginning of the month, we are very pleased that one can now…

Just a quick message to all our readers and everyone visiting or involved with the reserve, we hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Langford has had an amazing year with breeding bearded tits being the definite highlight! 

We look forward to more success and to seeing you all in 2017!

Thanks,

The Langford Team

Lovely Langford! Ben Hall (rspb-images.com)

Last Thursday, our usual WeBS'ers Matt and Stuart completed December's count. Here are this month's results....

247 mallard

83 teal

63 tufted duck

53 gadwall

9 goldeneye

7 shoveler

3 pochard

7 mute swan

68 Canada goose

20 greylag goose

42 coot

7 moorhen

3 little egret

2 grey heron

80 lapwing

5 golden plover

2 redshank

1 snipe

41 cormorant

1 kingfisher

110 black-headed gull

2 great black…

As the winter progresses into November, we expect to see an increase in wildfowl numbers on site. This is the start of the busiest time of year for our WeBS counters. Matt and Stuart completed the count this month, at times in hail, rain and gale force winds! But our hardy guys persevered and had a good morning – here are their results....

171 teal

152 tufted duck

94 mallard

20 pochard

18 gadwall

15 wigeo…

The habitats at here Langford Lowfields are developing nicely and over the years, we have seen many successes such as our first breeding marsh harriers in 2010, a pair of bittern in 2011, with resident birds ever since and the first confirmed juvenile Cetti’s warblers this year, in 2016.

However one of the most important milestones in the site’s history came as a bit of a surprise to us back in the spring....…

Our friend and wildlife artist Mike Warren is having his latest exhibition in Collingham on the 19-20 November!

Mike's artwork is stunning and features the birds of Langford from his many years of birding on site. The exhibition is at Collingham Community Centre on Low Street and runs from 10.00 - 16.00 both days. It's well worth a look!

The end of September still felt like it was the height of summer, with temperatures well into the 20's on some days, however it now feels like it has all come to an abrupt end! It's been decidedly cooler of late and the wildlife is also starting to tell us that winter approaches....

It's always a pleasure to hear the screeching sound of the first redwings overhead on a cool October morning. That's exactly…

September was a very busy month for us here at Langford, so apologies for the rather quiet state of the blog over the last few weeks! We've had a great time though, with so much going on.

It kicked off with attendance at the two-yearly RSPB Reserves Conference. This time held locally in Nottingham. It was great to welcome colleagues from all over the RSPB to the Midlands for three days of great talks and field trips…

We have an amazing team of volunteers here at Langford and Beckingham, performing a wide variety of roles from practical habitat management, estate maintenance and wildlife surveying to welcoming visitors onto site and volunteer wardening. In fact we have a team of over 60 and we couldn't operate without them!

So every year, we like to thank our volunteers with a variety of events and last week we had a sunset barbecue…

What? I hear you ask....well it stands for North Midlands One Team Jamboree(!) and is our great little initiative to get everyone in the north of the Midlands region together and working for nature. The idea is courtesy of our Area Manager, Michael Copleston and after two brilliant days out at Budby and Coombes, it was Langford's turn to host the event in August!

So on a very sunny and scorching day, we welcomed…

July is the first month of the WeBS year, with autumn passage starting, it also won't be long before we are welcoming our first winter visitors back onto site. Conducted by Stuart and Julie, here are July's results....

63 tufted duck

43 mallard

27 pochard

13 gadwall

3 teal

48 mute swan

105 graylag goose

37 Canada goose

89 coot

1 moorhen

14 cormorant

21 little egret

8 grey heron

8 great crested g…

Autumn passage seems to have started here at Langford  with some nice waders through in the last week or so. I was very pleased to see a party of 28 black-tailed godwit over on Wednesday morning. I watched them for several minutes as they wheeled over Phases 1 and 2, before looking like settling down on Phase 3. This species is annual at Langford and is always worth looking out for, along with the scarcer bar-tailed g…

Just to let everyone know that we will be having some work done on a fallen tree this morning on the public footpath through the woodland. The work won't take long, but is urgent due to removal a dangerous bough that has fallen over the footpath yesterday afternoon.

We apologise for any inconvenience and the path we be re-opened this afternoon.

Thanks,

The Langford Team (01636 893611)

Langford has had an Odonata overload in the last couple of weeks, with many new species for the year bursting onto the scene in really good numbers! I reported our delight at rediscovering hairy dragonfly on site, after an absence last year. This species is rather uncommon, but has been expanding northwards over the last few years and was discovered at Langford in 2014. Several individuals have been seen on site this…

Regular WeBS counter Stuart Carlton completed the latest monthly count last week on site - always a quiet time of year for this survey, but still some nice things around. Here are his results....

36 mallard

28 tufted duck

9 pochard

51 mute swan - impressive number

25 Canada goose

7 greylag goose

3 shelduck

92 coot

2 moorhen

2 grey heron

9 great crested grebe

1 cormorant

18 lapwing

5 avocet

2 oystercatc…

….after a longer wait than usual, we were treated to the beautiful sound of the first cuckoo singing at Langford on the 10^th May. Usually arriving at least a week if not more earlier, we were beginning to wonder where our birds had got to! Cuckoos do well at Langford because we have a good population of one of their most common host species – the reed warbler. Laying their eggs in the rather fragile looking…

Well at least in terms of migrants it has - it didn't feel like it though last Thursday morning when I arrived to Langford in -2C! But despite the cooler weather, it has been lovely in the last few weeks to catch up with all our spring migrants and we now have the majority of our breeding birds back with us.

Warblers are always a feature of Langford in the breeding season. The very vocal Cetti's warbler is with…

Unfortunately we have a problem with our electric gate at the moment. Therefore until we can get it fixed, we are having to operate it manually - the gate will be open between 09.00 and 17.00 daily until further notice. We are working to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience.

For any further information please call the office on 01636 893611.

A while ago I reported on the discovery of a scarce beetle species here at Langford, going by the name of Panagaeus bipustulatus - sorry, no English name for this one! This is a wetland specialist ground beetle (Carabidae) and quite a striking one too. Being a scarce species, I was rather excited about it's discovery, however was even more surprised when the specimen was re-identified a few weeks ago as something else…

It's been a couple of weeks since the count, but we haven't forgotten March's Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS), this month completed by volunteers Matt Marsh, Stuart Carlton and Mark Dawson. Here are their results....

100 tufted duck

54 wigeon

39 mallard

36 teal

6 goldeneye

5 gadwall

3 pintail

2 shoveler

1 pochard

13 mute swan

4 Canada goose

2 greylag goose

6 great crested grebe

2 little grebe

76…