Pip: Pete's Bog Blog in May and June — where the wildlife doesn't wait for a schedule and neither, apparently, does the construction crew.

Mara: Petesbogblog has been busy on two fronts: a photo-rich look at what's been moving around the reserve, and a serious habitat build that's now one roof away from welcoming its first barn owl.

Pip: Let's start with what's actually been spotted out there.

Reserve Wildlife Sightings

Mara: May in Pictures is exactly what it sounds like — a month's worth of reserve life captured in one post, covering everything from butterflies and dragonflies to deer, ducks, and a sparrowhawk.

Pip: The caption that earns its keep: "Female Tufted Duck doing Angel of the North impression." Someone's been waiting a while to use that one.

Mara: The range is genuinely wide. Orange Tip butterflies, a Painted Lady, a Scorpion Fly, Broad Bodied Chasers — including a female caught egg-laying — and a Roe Deer buck rounding out the mammal sightings alongside several appearances from very bouncy rabbits.

Pip: That's a reserve doing well. Which makes the next question obvious — what's being built to keep it that way?

Barn Owl Build and the Stoat in the Wall

Mara: The Barn Owl Build post documents a five-day construction project — a mini barn designed to house a barn owl box — carried out by Peter Smith alongside work experience students Ben and Aidan from KEVI.

Pip: Work experience students building actual wildlife infrastructure. That's a better week than most internships manage.

Mara: The post tracks it day by day: Auggie and Charlie break ground on day one, walls go up on day two, the door is fitted and path work begins on day three, and by day five the mezzanine is in place to hold the barn owl box. The post closes: "A very big thank you to Coquetdale Wildlife Group and The Hadrians Trust for helping fund this project."

Pip: So it's community-funded, volunteer-built, and one roof panel from operational. The infrastructure is real.

Mara: What this means in practice is that the reserve now has a purpose-built structure positioned specifically to attract barn owls to nest — not just passing through, but resident.

Pip: And the barn isn't the only new structure getting used. Cute Killer catches a stoat exploring the freshly built drystone wall at Woggle Water pond — introduced, naturally, as Stoaty McStoatface.

Mara: The post notes the stoat is "hopefully reducing my rat population, a little" — which is a fairly relaxed attitude toward having an apex small predator move into your wall.

Pip: Resident stoat, barn owl on the way. The reserve is assembling a cast.

Mara: A month of sightings and a week of building — the reserve is active on both fronts.

Pip: Next time, we'll see if the roof goes on and whether the barn owls got the memo.