Not for the first time a large pile of waste was dumped in the Otmoor reserve car park at the weekend. It's always disheartening and angering when this happens and this time even more so, as the pile is so big. We have a skip in the car park at the moment and the rubbish is being moved in to it, so apologies if this causes any inconvenience in terms of parking. We are liaising with the council and are hopeful of securing a conviction against the company we believe to be involved.
On the topic of inconvenience, some of you will have noticed that the second screen looking out over the reedbed has been taken down. You can still go up there and sit on the benches, but please don’t wander any further around the edge of the reedbed. We will be putting up a new screen over the next few months, clad in the same red cedar as the Wetlands Watch hide so will look great when completed. In the mean time you can enjoy the wide, open, unscreened view.
Another announcement to make is that the tree bees are back, nesting in the volunteers hut. These bees first turned up in the UK in 2001, so are a new addition to this countries fauna. You might be able to see them as you go past the hut. Apparently they are friendly and only attack when aggravated... one rogue individual did fly at me last year and sting me on the lip, but I think it was probably the vibrations from my quad bike which had annoyed it.
Some other good news is that we’ve added a new flower species to the list of those found on the reserve! We are waiting for confirmation of our identification, but we’re pretty confident that we have two early marsh orchids growing on the Greenaways field. Sadly they can’t be seen from the public bridleway, but we did have other orchids growing along the bridleway last year so keep your eyes open.