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Joe Harris (RSPB Langford Lowfields Site Manager)

Some of you will have seen the burnt out car dumped in the car park at the beginning of the week. This has now been removed by the police and apart from a few small bits of metal and a large burn mark, the rubbish left behind has been cleared up. With the car gone this end of the car park is now open again.

I’ve seen three moles on the moor recently, two of them were dead but finally on Tuesday I saw a live one shuffling across Otmoor Lane. The hot weather we’ve had has really dried out the ground and so it was probably coming to the surface looking for insects or potentially searching out a new territory.

Talking of hole digging creatures, the Tuesday team are making great progress with building the new reedbed viewing screen. 10 of the 20 posts have now been dug and concreted into place and work on putting up the cladding will start next week.
Another less visual volunteer success has been the completion of the up-graded cattle handling pen over on the Barn Field. To ensure the cattle handling facilities are as safe and efficient as possible the Wednesday and Thursday teams have up-graded what was already there, adding sliding gates to allow the cattle to be moved through the pen in a controlled manner, adding new fencing and adding a new crush in which the cattle can be held whilst being checked by a vet. With the Barn work finished they will next be moving on to start a similar project on the Malt Pit field.

Other than the mole, recent wildlife sightings have included lots of common lizards and grass snakes, swarms of froglets, up to seven green sandpipers, a ringed plover, common terns, marsh harrier, bearded tits and loads of butterflies with Moorleys Field (next to the car park and which is now open) and July's Meadow (at the end of the track heading South from the Wetlands Watch hide) being particularly good places to see them. Purple hairstreaks and silver-wash fritillary butterflies have been seen recently and it shouldn't be long until the elusive brown hairstreaks are on the wing.

  • A quite unexpected viewing at 2000hrs last evening was the arrival of a starling roost. An estimate of 3/4000 birds arrived over a period of twenty minutes or so and gave a small display before going in to roost in the reedbed. They had quietened down a good 45 minutes before (a lovely) sunset!

    Richard and Lyn saw them.