Bittern double

When Peter et al reported the Bittern at Lavell's today I was determined to check it out and go on to WSL to prove my theory that they rarely commute between lakes during the day, therefore we had two.

I got down around 16:20 and met Trev outside, then Alan and Les in Bittern hide. Les's scope was still pretty much on it, so I was soon scoping this lovely mid phase bird fishing and over 30 minutes it caught 4 fish from the same point in the Reed Mace just right of the Phragmites section, left of Tern scrape.

It is such a pleasure watching Bittern feed - heads down, beak in the water, head tilted to one side, then when they are about to strike, they vibrate with excitement and it seems, rarely miss.

Just after I tweeted and 'WhatsApp'd the news out, I marched off to WSL via the sailing club, scanning all the way, just in case a Goosander was in.

On arrival at WSL, I met Roger and he had the same idea as me, within about 5 minutes we were watching a much darker bird climb mid way up the reeds, offering pretty good views considering the distance.

I am always happy with one Bittern, two is fantastic.

From what I could make out the Lavell's bird had a rather dark red eye, which I have always presumed meant an adult, but it did have much paler primaries then expected. The WSL bird despite the range appeared to also be dark eyed, so it might well be that we have adult, or near adult birds here, which if true is not that common. We can only speculate that some are birds that have visited us before, but without a means to identify individuals, such as colour rings, we can never be sure.