One bittern - quite shy
The Tuesday Lunchtime Natural History Half-Hour
My knowledge of natural history is not extensive. My background is in Egyptian Archaeology and then military and social history. So when Jo asked if I wanted to go and see the bittern at Seafield Pond, I said ‘Of course’. Mind you my knowledge of bitterns was limited to a) it’s a bird, b) it lives in marshes and c) they make a booming noise (which I have never heard). I had no idea what one looked like. Luckily Jo was able to show me a picture before we set out. So at least I knew I’d be looking for something brown with light bits. In amongst the reeds. Hiding.
So off we went. The pond has been drained to a very low level, splitting it into two sections. The site used to be the town dump, so there’s all kinds of interesting bits of rubbish poking up through the mud - broken pottery, bottles and bricks. Jo set up her scope on the ‘landbridge’ (or rather ‘mudbridge’) looking back towards one of the reed beds and after no more than a couple of minutes she had acquired the target. It was impossible to see with the naked eye from that distance, even when you knew exactly where it was, but through the scope… perfectly sharp. The bittern (which I guess is here over the winter) had the good grace to not just sit there doing nothing but to actually catch a couple of fish. Mind you, it happened so fast all I saw was a small splash, a flash of silver and the end of the fish disappearing into the bird. It was suprisingly exciting, perhaps because it has the additional attraction of seeing something that usually happens out of sight, or that is hard to get to see. I don’t think I’ll be becoming a twitcher quite yet though.
As it happens Jo did a dissertation on bitterns while working for her degree, and spent many hours observing them. Or rather many hours waiting for them to appear, and a considerably smaller time actually watching them. I may quit while I’m ahead with a 100% strike rate on bittern-observation.
Update: my visit was yesterday. Those who went today registered a zero on the bittern-o-meter.