Otmoor is amazing for bird life at the moment. 8 hobbies were dashing about over the reserve yesterday catching insects, a marsh harrier was hunting over the reedbed and common terns were elegantly gliding around looking for small fish. Swifts and swallows swooped overhead. Skylarks were singing, a turtle dove was purring, redshank and lapwings were calling and snipe were drumming.

Lots of chicks are wandering around in the fields at the moment too, with coot and moorhen being the most obvious, along with the big families of greylag geese. If you're lucky maybe you'll see some lapwing chicks feeding alongside the shallow wet features in the fields (see top photo below of two recently hatched lapwings). When out surveying yesterday we also had the rare treat of finding a snipe chick (see photo at bottom of the page), well camouflaged, it was hard to spot it hiding in the grass. Snipe are one of the success stories of Otmoor and it's always amazing to see the young birds, with their comically long bills.