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Saturday 6 July 2013

Twice Bittern....

I had been umming and ahhing all week whether to take the plunge or not and drive down to Somerset to see the Little Bitterns who are breeding at Ham Wall.  I woke up at 5:00am this morning and promptly rolled over but then woke up again at 7:15am when I decided that I would go for it.

Cuckoo blurred by heat haze
After what seemed like a really long drive I arrived at the car park at Ham Wall, secured myself a spot and ambled along the track not really knowing where I needed to head.

A Cuckoo obligingly sat on some telegraph wires close by and as I rounded a bend it became blindingly obvious where the viewing station for the Bitterns was due to the long line of telescopes and tripods on display.

I settled among the pods and commenced a long and hot wait.  Not knowing where the nest was, I missed the first fly past by the female as she skimmed across the reed tops disappearing from view within seconds.  After about an hours wait the male was spotted and I managed to grab a sighting of him as he flew towards us and then dipped down out of view into a water channel.  During the next couple of hours I managed another quick view of the male and then the female as she flew away from us back to the nest.

During the long waits, we were entertained by some Cettis Warblers who kept giving us great views right in front of us.  A Bittern also flew over our heads and Kingfishers were busy fishing nearby.

After about three hours, the heat finally overcame me and I walked back to car to grab a bite to eat and then drove down to Greylake RSPB Reserve to see what that was like.  Due to it being the middle of afternoon, things were pretty quiet so I decided to make the long trip home.

Nice to see two species of Bittern in one day.  I cannot imagine that I will be doing that again for a long time.  Also nice to get another new lifer, my 6th for the year, quite a bit down from this time last year when I think I had netted about 15.  Also still waiting to achieve my target birds for this year which are Red Backed Shrike and Pomarine Skuas (they both still remain unseen).

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