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Joe Harris (RSPB Langford Lowfields Site Manager)
Otmoor has been in the news again today, with media attention focusing on the work we’re doing to benefit snipe. Last year we received a grant from WREN (a not-for-profit organisation that award grants using money generated from landfill tax credits), which will allow us to carry out a range of projects on the reserve, a number of which will benefit snipe In the face of a national 60% decline in numbers, we have managed to maintain a stable population of snipe on Otmoor. We had 13 pairs of snipe breeding on the moor this year and with the work WREN are funding we are hopeful that these numbers will increase.
Snipe are amazing birds, with massive bills and the ability to produce a strange drumming sound during the breeding season. They are a bird of wet, wild places and we’re proud to have the only breeding population in Oxfordshire on Otmoor.
Snipe love eating worms and so a lot of our snipe work is focused on increasing worm numbers on the reserve. Some of the ways we are doing this are to provide more organic matter for the worms to eat in the form of manure and also carrying out work to improve the soil structure, making it ‘looser’ so that worms can move more easily through it and so snipe can more easily probe their long bills into it. Work has also been carried out to create more prime snipe feeding areas, with lots of soft, wet mud surrounded by long vegetation.
As well as snipe living on Otmoor during the breeding season, we also have snipe on the moor during the winter, with many of these camouflaged birds making use of the wetland habitats on offer. Snipe present on Otmoor during the winter will have moved down from Northern Europe in an attempt to find someone a bit warmer to spend their time. Keep your eyes open next time you’re on the moor as you might just be lucky enough to see one.
For more info about WREN see www.wren.org.uk
Both photos below were taken by Roger Wyatt, the first shows a lone snipe, it’s huge bill clearly visible. The second photo shows part of one of the flocks of snipe we had on the reserve last winter.