Mid-June The last view, just from from the bridleway?

Bop Bop (c) Bark

The heavy rain of last week and overnight at the weekend, has recharged the scrapes and pools across the moor. It has also encouraged another growth spurt in the vegetation and everywhere is lush and verdant. Cow parsley and other umbellifers are frothing in the hedgerows, while Teazels and Burdocks seem to grow inches over night creating their strong structural shapes beside the paths and on any vacant piece of ground.

The hedgerows and ditches are busy with birds that are provisioning nestlings, and already there are many family groups of freshly fledged tits and warblers to be seen. 

Newly fledged Great Tit

Some are still being fed away from the nest by parents and others are fully independent. Some adult birds are singing once again and starting  second broods.

Wren and Sedgie (c) Bark

Out on Big Otmoor a pair of Pintail have bred successfully, although now there only seems to be three offspring left in the brood. This is a very significant occurrence as this is the first time that this beautiful species has successfully bred in the county. There has sometimes been  the odd pair that has hung about in the spring and late last summer we did see a couple of eclipse males on the southern lagoon. 

Pintail Top picture (c) Heather Green other two (c) Bark

Close to the reserve a female Mandarin has been seen with ducklings further adding to the tally of breeding species on the moor. A very young Stonechat was photographed in the last week to the south of the hide and it seems very likely that they have bred once again either on or adjacent to the reserve.

Above female with missing feathers below Male (c) Bark

Although we have not been able to access the reedbed for the last several months, we have been able to watch three adult Marsh Harriers coming and going across all of the fields as they hunted to provision their chicks. This weekend we were able to see two of the resulting chicks perching on the top of the reedbed bushes as they waited for the adults to bring in food. Newly fledged Marsh Harriers are distinctive, they are a uniform chocolate brown with yellow cream head markings. There are three easily identifiable adults, a strongly tri-coloured male, a female with particularly pale forewing and shoulders and another female that is missing a primary and several secondaries from her left wing.

Marsh Harriers with prey and being mobbed (c) Tom N-L

Bitterns can be seen as they move between different feeding areas and on Saturday morning this week three were seen flying out of a small reedbed close to the bridleway. 

Redshank Flypast

On the previous weekend I was lucky enough to arrive at the same spot just as a periscope like head was rising above the reeds and taking a long look round. Eventually the bird sprung up using its legs to thrust it above the vegetation and so get its wings into action.

Bittern lift off (c) Bark

Whilst many species have bred successfully across the reserve, once again “our” Cranes were not able to raise a chick to fledging. We were hopeful that this year would be the one when we could claim the first successful breeding in Oxfordshire of these stunning birds, for something like three or four hundred years. 

Wycliffe and Maple Glory 

Ted and Excalibird 

Bop Bop being mobbed by a Gull All pics (c) Bark

Our hopes were raised even more when “our” pair were joined by another pair and an unpaired female. I say joined, but pairs are very intolerant of each other when occupying breeding territory. There were disputes and eventually both pairs settled down to breeding. It must be said that both pairs were even more intolerant of the unpaired female, “Bopbop”! ( the cranes from the re-introduction programme were named by primary school children on the Somerset Levels…….need I say more? ) Our regular pair, Wycliff and Maple Glory, settled down to nesting early and we were able to monitor their laying and incubation by watching their behaviour. The new pair, “Ted” and “Excalibird” made their breeding attempt later. We were able to calculate when the chick or chicks had hatched and duly the parent birds were seen with what we assumed was a youngster down in the grass. Later still reserve staff saw a well grown youngster that we calculated was six weeks out of the egg, being carefully attended by its parents. Then unfortunately something untoward happened and we presume the chick was predated. As soon as we see the adult birds flying together, we can assume the worse. The second pair also hatched young, but their offspring would appear to have perished just ten days after hatching. The Crane experts suggest that there is enough habitat in the Otmoor basin to support three or four pairs of Cranes. 

Bop Bop being chased off by Wycliffe (c) Bark

They are long-lived birds and must be learning all the time, so yet again our hopes for a successful outcome are postponed for another year. In the meantime, they can be seen and heard on and over the reserve. The pairs are still quite bellicose and will bugle loudly at each other if they get too close or indeed if one pair invades the others airspace. Interestingly once they are back on their wintering grounds they will coexist in large flocks. We are able to identify them precisely because they carry individual coloured leg rings that can be read from a distance, although as the grass gets longer this can be much harder to do.

This is the time of year when insect life on Otmoor thrives in all its weird and diverse forms. Butterflies are on the wing in increasing numbers and our rarer species like both Black and White Letter Hairstreaks can be found with careful searching. Brown Hairstreaks will be on the wing later on in the summer. 

Comma, Small Tortoiseshell and Bumble Bee (c) Bark

Strange creatures like the rare Hornet Moth are being found. They use Aspens and Poplars as their food plants, and we have good numbers of mature Aspens in our hedgerows. It is an extraordinary piece of mimicry, to use the fearsome hornet with its powerful sting as a way to deter predation.

Hornet Moth (c) Badger

A small colony of a very rare Dragonfly has been found beside the river Ray close to the reserve. They are Southern Migrant Hawkers a species that is expanding its range northwards and westwards. They are very similar to Southern Hawkers but there are subtle differences apparent to the cognoscenti. This is the first occurrence of this species in Oxfordshire.

Courtesy of Badger.

Southern Migrant Hawker (c) Geoff Wyatt

The occurrence of regular, new and rare breeding species of both birds and insects reflects just how rich the Otmoor environment is. Once again it has shown that once you create and maintain habitats wildlife will find them and exploit them.

Long Meadow Hare (c) Bark

May and into June. The view from the Bridleway Again

Curlew (c) Bark

Weeks have slipped by and June has arrived and with it early summer. The number of visitors to the bridleway steadily increasing as the degree of lockdown has been modified and diluted. It has been surprising and pleasing just how much can be seen and appreciated without venturing out onto the reserve itself. 

RSPB sign (c) Tom NL

It seems likely that access to the screens and certainly to the hide will remain closed for the foreseeable future. On the positive side it is easier to maintain correct social distancing in the great outdoors and we are told that transmission of the virus is lower outdoors than indoors.

Juvenile tits above Great Tit (c) Bark       Below Blue Tit (c) JR

Although we are only supposed to meet one person from another household in the open air, it is difficult not to bump into many friends and acquaintances along the bridleway. It would be antisocial and rude not to stop and have a few words with them.

Whitethroat (c) Mark C

Warblers are still very obvious beside the track and along the ditches, but they are now spending more time providing invertebrate food for hungry broods, rather than singing to attract a mate or claim territory as they were at the start of the month. 

Whitethroat with a bill full of Grasshoppers (c) Bark

All ten of our breeding warblers can either be seen or heard between the carpark and Noke with Grasshopper Warbler being the most elusive, although one has started to reel again in the southern part of the carpark field and another can sometimes be heard in the vicinity of one of the larger gaps between Ashgrave and the bridleway towards Noke. Cetti’s Warblers seem to be almost as common now as Sedge or Reed Warblers.

Garden Warbler and blackcap (c) JR

The hot dry month has reduced water levels significantly and the scrapes are rapidly drying out. A few passage waders have been seen including Wood Sandpipers, Ringed Plovers and Ruff. 

Lapwing and Marsh Harrier (c) Tom NL

Oystercatchers are still present (c) Bark

The breeding Lapwings can be seen challenging aerial predators that including Marsh Harriers, Red Kites, Immature Herring Gulls and corvids. Redshanks are still calling and courting, but I have yet to see any newly fledged juveniles. 

Redshank with the white wing patch (c) Bark

There is one odd and easily noticeable Redshank with a white panel in its left wing that can often be seen around the first large scrape on Big Otmoor. Snipe are drumming and chipping over The Closes, Ashgrave, Big Otmoor and Greenaway’s. They seem to be well spread out over the whole reserve this year.

Snipe (c) Bark

Bitterns are being seen regularly from the bridleway flying in and out of the reedbeds and on one day we saw two Bitterns and a Heron flying over together and it was not clear whether there was some pursuit or other going on all three descended over the reedbed and we lost sight of them. Almost simultaneously another bird had been seen to fly into one of the Greenaway’s reedbeds and so we can be certain that there is a minimum of three Bitterns on site, but we suspect that there are certainly more than that.

Bittern Pictures (c) Dan and Tricia Miller

 Little Egrets are haunting the shrinking pools and there have been up to eight of them together. The Great White Egret that was seen out on Big Otmoor earlier in the month, has unfortunately not yet made a reappearance.

Little Egret (c) Bark           Great Egret (c) Old Caley

Just as in the past few years we appear to have a very healthy population of Cuckoos and there are at least five different birds on over and around the reserve. We are hearing many more females calling now with their distinctive chuckling call. Unfortunately, there have been no reports of the striking hepatic bird hat was here during the last two summers. Interestingly however we had two separate sightings of bird with an antenna and tiny transmitter on its back during the last week of May.

Cuckoo (c) Old Caley

Marsh Harriers are a permanent fixture over the reserve and can be seen hunting across all of the fields and making food passes to each other, it will not be long before they will be calling newly fledged youngsters up from the ground and dropping supplies for them. 

Hobby (c) Old Caley

By mid-morning Hobbies can be seen every day hunting over much of the reserve but favouring Greenaway’s. Increasing numbers of Dragonflies are on the wing offering rich feeding opportunities for birds that are fast and agile enough to catch them. 

Broad Bodied Chaser, Downy Emerald and Four Spot Chaser (c) Bark

The abundance of invertebrate food, as flies hatch from the reedbeds and ditches, is attracting many swifts and hirundines. The Swifts will feed low and close especially in strong winds. There seem to be fewer Swallows about this year, not a data driven fact just a feeling. There were some reports of Swallows running into difficulties on their return migration in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Swifts over the bridleway (c) Bark

From time to time Common Terns can be seen hunting along the ditches over Greenaways. The Tern raft at the second screen could not be put out before the lockdown and the furloughing of the permanent staff. The returning staff managed to get the raft out and I have been told that it was occupied by at least one pair of terns almost immediately.

Common Tern (c) Bark

Curlews can be heard and seen over Greenaways and from the Roman Road, we are cautiously optimistic that these beautiful and charismatic birds are having a successful breeding season. They can often be seen coming in to bathe at the now shrinking pond to the east of the pump house along the bridleway.

Curlews (c) Bark

Corn Bunting has been added to the Otmoor yearlist. A single bird has been heard singing and seen a little to the north of the reserve. The last ones that I know of on the moor were seen over ten years ago on the MOD land. 

Corn Bunting (c) Bark

There is very little arable farming close to the reserve, but the abundance of different grasses should ensure that there will soon be plenty of seeds to feed on.

Large Skipper (c) Del boy

We are approaching the time when some of our scarcer and more sought-after butterflies will be on the wing. Black Hairstreaks should be flying now and small numbers can be sometimes be found in the Roman Road area and as we reach the ehd of June we will be looking for White Letter Hairstreaks on the northern side of the moor where there are still many suckering elms. Grasshoppers of many different species are pinging off from under your feet as you walk through any grassy area. 

Labyrinth Spiders  Above (c) Bark    below Tom NL

Early on damp dewy mornings it is possible to see carpets of spiders web woven outside and around funnels that lead back into the huge cracks and fissures that have appeared in the bridleway. They are the lairs of what I think are Labyrinth Spiders Agelina labyrinthica  that lay out a carpet of fine threads around a central funnel from which they emerge to seize any unfortunate insect that has tripped their wires.

As Quail have already been reported from the Downs, we might hope to hear their distinctive call soon as the grass grows longer. Despite the restrictions there is always something new or different to find or look for on Otmoor.

A Bee fly ? (c) Bark