Some of you will have seen the burnt out car dumped in the car park at the beginning of the week. This has now been removed by the police and apart from a few small bits of metal and a large burn mark, the rubbish left behind has been cleared up. With the car gone this end of the car park is now open again.

As some of Otmoor’s eagle eyed visitors will have noticed, the tractor has been trundling around the fields. It is the time of year we complete our wet grassland management. The breeding season for many ground nesting birds has now finished so we need to start preparations for next spring. This may sound early but most of the grass has flowered and seeded, therefore won’t grow too much before the onset of winter.…

Work has now started on building the new viewing screens that will look out over the Otmoor reedbed. The northern most screen is being built first and so it's worth being aware of this before making the long walk down to the end of the visitor's trail. The area around the screen is currently closed off and so although you might see the bearded tits on your way down there, you won't be able to make use of the benches…

Why not join us on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th August at Wytham Woods to camp out at the Oxford University's famous research woodland! Go badger watching, bat detecting and find out what else may be active in the wood at night. There will be a bbq and a campfire to sit around, tell wildlife stories and toast marshmallows. 4pm saturday to 11am sunday and costs members: Adult £30/child £18 and Non members: Adult £38…

After the breeding success of the snipe and common terns on the reserve this year, it was great to see two young, recently fledged, turtle doves near to the cattle pen on Greenaways this afternoon (one is shown in the photo below). With turtle doves having suffered a massive population crash over the past few decades every one that makes it through to fledging counts as a success story!

If you spend time looking for the…

With the exciting news that the common terns nesting on our magnificent tern raft have managed to raise a chick, we decided we should head out to make sure the anti-predator, electric fence round the outside of the raft was still working. So off David and I sailed across the warm, still waters of the reedbed.

We've got a number of clay pipes on the raft to provide shelter for the chick, but as it has grown so much…

 The presence of young bearded tits in the Otmoor has generated a lot of excitement. They are specialist reedbed birds and so it's great that they have taken up residence on the reserve. Unfortunately no staff members have yet seen these special birds and so for now we are making do with these excellent photos taken by Terry Sherlock.

Another of the snipe nests that we've been monitoring on the reserve has now hatched out, two chicks were taking their first steps in the sunshine on Saturday and hopefully the other two eggs have hatched out since (video and photos of one of the chicks taken by Lorna Potter).

www.youtube.com/watch

On top of this we also found two fledged snipe on Friday. Although snipe had been confirmed breeding and chicks…

There are some things that not many people get to see on Otmoor. Seeing snipe chicks hatching out is definitely one of these special things. Whilst changing the battery on one of the nest cameras I heard cheeping coming from the nest and peering inside saw that the chicks had started hatching; 2 were out of their eggs, one was just pecking its way out and I’m sure the fourth wasn’t far behind. The egg teeth can still…

On Saturday 29^th June we are holding an exciting ‘Explore the Moor’ event on Otmoor. Starting at 1pm and running through to 4pm, it will be a great opportunity for children and families to get close to wildlife on the moor and to take part in fun activities including pond dipping for underwater beasties, bug hunting and building a home for wildlife http://homes.rspb.org.uk

You can turn up at any time between…

For the first time we have got cameras set up on some of the snipe nests on the reserve. Otmoor is the only place in central England where these well camouflaged birds with ridiculously long bills breed. They seem to be doing very well on the reserve and we're putting a lot of effort this year into finding the nests and monitoring their progress. Due to their secretive nature there are still a lot of unknowns regarding…

Back in May, a lone female bearded tit was seen on the reserve, this was an unusual sighting for Otmoor as these reedbed birds are normally only seen on the reserve during the winter months. We assumed it was just an interesting out-of-season sighting until last week when Peter Coombes, a regular visitor to the moor got some photos of two young bearded tits. This is amazing news as from their plumage you can tell they…

Guest blog - Jodie Southgate (Research Student)       

31st May 2013

Some of you may have noticed that the visitor trail at Otmoor now boasts a new section to the south of the hide. Opened last autumn, this path connects up with those running along the southern edges of The Closes and Ashgrave, creating new circular walks around this quiet (and often wildlife-rich) part of the reserve.

You may also have noticed a…

We are very lucky on Otmoor to have turtle doves breeding. The moor is probably one of the few places in the area where you can reliably see these birds. First thing in the morning, you can often see them feeding in the cattle pen area on Greenaways. We have been putting seed out for them here and this is not only giving them a good food source but also means that you can get great views. Even if you don’t see these wonderful…

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…

The majority of the lapwing nests on the moor have now hatched. We never manage to track down every single one of the nests, but we find a high percentage and what happens to them gives us a good picture of the hatching success of these threatened birds. It’s always exciting finding the nests, but even more exciting seeing the actual chicks. The loud, distinctive alarm calling of the adults gives you an early warning…

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…

We often have to be spontaneous at this time of year, ready to leap into action at a moments notice to carry out survey work. The surveys are all weather dependent and so when it looked like it was going to be windless and even potentially sunny yesterday evening, we decided it was a wise idea to stay late and do a snipe survey.

Snipe are one of the star birds on Otmoor and we represent the only site in central England…

Ignoring the fact that it's pouring with rain at the moment, now is a good time of year to see lots of interesting insects on the moor. Local birder/photographer Peter Coombes recently took the photos below of some amazing looking lackey moth caterpillars. Once the lackey moth eggs have hatched the emerging caterpillars create a silken tent to protect themselves, they then start feeding until they've reached a certain…

Last year we built a raft which we floated out into the northern phase of the reedbed to try and attract common terns into nesting. They didn’t nest last year, possibly because we got the raft out a bit too late, but this time around we got it out just at the right time. Battling against a massive head wind, we rowed the raft out to its mooring position a few weeks ago and anchored it in place. The raft is covered in…

There are lots of flowers brightening up the moor at the moment and the photos below were taken during my early morning bird survey yesterday morning. The photos below were all taken on Asham Meads, a Wildlife Trust site on the north east side of the moor, but these flowers are all also found on the RSPB reserve too. Lady’s smock is particularly visible with its delicate, purple-tinged, white flowers, standing out brightly…

You never quite know what you’re going to see on the moor and so it was a nice surprise to come across a field vole nest yesterday. It had at least 5, very young pink vole pups snuggled up in it. The nest was tucked away in a hole I’d buried a lapwing nest camera battery in. As well as chewing up part of the dry bag (that protects the battery) to make the nest, a lot of dried grass had also been collected up to make…

Yesterday’s lapwing nest monitoring showed that most nests inside the anti-predator fence have now hatched. We now just have to hope that the small balls of fluff can make it through the next few weeks until they fledge and are able to fly.

Lapwing chicks are well camouflaged and their defence strategy is to sit perfectly still (hopefully underneath some dense vegetation), whilst the adult birds try and distract…

It's always exciting at this time of year when the lapwing nests start to hatch out. Five of the nests have hatched so far, with more due to follow soon. The first picture below shows a typical egg following hatching, with the 'flat' end of the egg having been chipped away. The adults take the egg shells away from the nest, but tell tale small fragments are often left behind in the lining of the nest. The second picture…