Declining wildlife is thriving in the most unexpected place - Oxford Airport at Kidlington.

Skylarks and voles, both threatened through changes in farming practices, have been spotted at the site off Langford Lane, including a grass verge near a runway.

Now Jeremy Smith, a flying instructor and member of the Natural History Society, is looking at ways to maintain and protect them.

He said: "Normally, birds and aeroplanes do not get on, but a small bird like a skylark doesn't pose us much of a problem. We've been within 50ft of them with the engines running and they didn't seem bothered."

Mr Smith is keen to encourage more skylarks - which have declined nationally by 54 per cent over the last 20 years.

Farmers who manage grassland around the airport are being asked to fit cutting programmes around the nesting season.

Meanwhile airport tenants McAlpine Helicopters found field voles nesting near a hangar. They called in Oxford Brookes University environmental science lecturer Margery Reid to move them to a safer part of the airfield.

She said: "The field vole is declining, mainly due to loss of habitat, but the grassy land provides them with a perfect home."