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Joe Harris (RSPB Langford Lowfields Site Manager)

If you can put up with the wet conditions, the wildlife spectacle on the moor at the moment is amazing. There are literally 1000’s of birds on the reserve, feeding on the flooded wetland fields and it conjures up images of how the whole of Otmoor must have looked before the land was drained and modified for farming. Big Otmoor is currently holding a lot of the birdlife and a quick scan across should reveal wigeon, teal, shoveler, gadwall, pintail, lapwing and golden plover. Looking through more closely should reveal dunlin, ruff and maybe even a sanderling, or grey plover. The latter two species are rare visitors to Otmoor and are normally found on the coast, near huge expanses of water....
In the reedbed, otters, bearded tits and water rails were seen over the weekend and short eared owls and hen harriers are being seen hunting across the reserve land. We are currently pumping water out of the Greenaways field into the reedbed, but Greenaways has still got more water sitting on it than at any time since the RSPB acquired the field.
Moving away from wetness, we spotted a common lizard basking in the sunshine on Friday and staff and volunteers have found brown hairstreak butterfly eggs in locations on the reserve where they’ve not previously been recorded.

 All photos below taken by Peter Coombes.

Lots of wildfowl & waders:

Two snipe:

One bearded tit: