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Joe Harris (RSPB Langford Lowfields Site Manager)

If you’ve visited the moor over the past few weeks you have seen that we are carrying out a lot of tractor work. As well as bouncing round the fields making a lot of noise, we have been also been ‘topping’ the grass, removing the dead seed heads to encourage more luxurious growth for the cattle to feed on and also to remove thistles and rush which can end up dominating large areas of the grassland. The cattle grazing will then give us lots of areas of short grass which will be great for lapwing to nest on next spring, as well as muddy areas which are perfect for wading birds, cow pats which are really good for insects and some longer areas of vegetation which can be ideal for redshank and snipe to nest in.

We have also been using the tractor to start our annual plan of ‘rotovation’ and you can see a good example of this right in front of the hide. Rotovating basically involves us churning up the top layer of soil to create bare, open, muddy patches. Once these have been weathered in, covered with water and then exposed again slowly next year, just like the muddy areas produced by the cattle, they provide superb feeding areas for wading birds and their chicks (photo below was taken this spring and shows a well camouflaged lapwing chick feeding on one of the rotovated areas).
Lapwings also like nesting on these open areas and during the spring we often find nests in areas that had been rotovated the previous summer (not the most exciting photo! but if you look carefully you can see the well-hidden lapwing nest on the muddy rotovated area).

At the moment the rotovated patch in front of the Wetlands Watch hide is also proving to be a good spot for seeing yellow wagtails. A flock of 50-100 was reported at the weekend and there are still a few following the cattle around and also picking up insects exposed on the mud (photos below show yellow wagtails near the hide, taken by Peter Barker http://otmoorbirding.blogspot.co.uk/).

Other interesting sightings over the past few days have included a number of whinchat and wheatears seen across the reserve, spotted flycatcher (with one being seen regularly feeding on the wires near the bird feeding station), two marsh harriers, hobbies, clouded yellow butterflies, grass snakes, common lizards and one of our famous turtle doves was seen this morning, limbering up in preparation for it’s flight to Africa.
July’s Meadow just South of the Wetlands Watch hide is still proving to be a great place for a variety of insects, the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday teams have done a great job clearing ragwort out of this field. It’s a tedious job but ragwort is potentially poisonous to livestock and so we stay on top of this plant before it gets too prolific.