I get to see some amazing wildlife on Otmoor and especially at this time of year when we spend a lot of time on the moor carrying out surveying and monitoring work, you never know what you’re going to stumble across. Although I missed the osprey, which apparently flew right in front of me a couple of days ago, I did recently get amazing views of a redshank. Some might say it’s not quite as exciting a bird, but getting really close to any wildlife is always special. The redshank stayed sitting tight on its nest even when I was almost on top of it. At first I just thought the eggs had gone from the nest and a muddy patch was left behind, but soon realised the muddy patch was actually the adult bird. It just showed how well camouflaged these ground nesting wading birds can be and also showed why we’ve so far only been able to track down a couple of the redshank nests on the moor this year.
In terms of up-coming projects on the moor; in the not too distant future we are going to be replacing the viewing screens that look out over the reedbed. The current screens have reached the end of their lives and as soon as we’ve finalised our designs and as soon as the bird breeding season has finished, we will get on with taking down the old and erecting the new. We also need to update our cattle handling facilities and so these are two of the main jobs that will keep our volunteer teams busy over the coming weeks.