We’ve been so busy at Otmoor recently our blog has been very neglected! Hopefully we can get it back on track from now on.

Some exciting news at the moment comes in the form of a rare duck that is currently sheltering in the Otmoor reedbed. Normally found in Eastern Europe and Asia the ferruginous duck (named after the iron colour of its plumage) seems quite happy lurking along the edges of the reed islands and swimming around with the pochards. A few turn up in the UK every year but apparently this is the first to find its way to Oxfordshire since 1989. It was found on Monday and will hopefully stick around for a few more days. The photo below was taken by Terry Sherlock.

 Sticking with bird news we had a very successful Wetland Bird Survey on Monday with lots of interesting waders and wildfowl around, the total counts for the survey were:

Mute Swan 5
European White-fronted Goose 7
Greylag Goose 25
Canada Goose 43
Wigeon 474
Gadwall 9
Teal  859
Mallard 93
Pintail 85
Shoveler 552
Pochard 15
Tufted Duck 20
Ferruginous duck 1
Cormorant 1
Bittern 1
Little Egret 6
Grey Heron 7
Water Rail 2
Moorhen 6
Coot 90
Ringed Plover 2
Golden Plover 670
Grey Plover 1
Lapwing 263
Ruff 1
Dunlin 16
Snipe 7
Redshank 10
Black-tailed godwit 10
Curlew 11

 The cold weather certainly hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of the wading birds and the breeding season has definitely kicked off. Redshank and lots of lapwing can be seen displaying in the fields. To help them out a bit we really need to lower water levels in the fields, because of this we're hoping the levels in the ring ditches that surround the moor will carry on dropping so that water can flow out through our sluices. In order to speed up the draining process down at the Noke end of the reserve we’ve had to turn on the pump on to drain the bridleway. We have waited for the ring ditch levels to drop before doing this and the pump will only be on overnight.