What followed though was truly amazing and behaviour we had never witnessed before. The Bittern fluttered across the channel, unusual in itself because we normally see them wade slowly across, and then fluffed up all of its feathers and raised itself up tall in order to look really imposing. I had heard that there were two Bitterns present in the small reedbed so I assumed that this Bittern was threat posturing and the display was aimed at the other Bittern which was secreted in the reeds nearby.
The "Mad" Bittern then launched into a lurch along the edge of the reeds and stalked nearer towards us, moving quickly for a bird which usually seems to take its time to do anything, before stopping and raising its wings above the body while extending and lowering the neck and head out. The object of its ire must have been very close and if I'd been the other Bittern, or whatever it was, I'd have been legging it in the other direction!
The Bittern then appeared to calm itself down a little, stood up tall again and strode purposefully along the reeds once more but all the time was clearly peering into the reedbed towards which it had directed its posturing.
What followed then was even more remarkable and spellbinding. The Bittern went into a crazy dance, reminding me of Baloo's major scene in the Jungle Book film, whereby it started jumping about, extending its wings although not flapping, opening its bill wide and ruffling the feathers up even more than it had done before. It hopped around, darting one way and then the other, before seemingly staring straight at us in the hide and making itself look as large and as threatening as possible. It was an incredible thirty-seconds of action!
Finished with its theatrics and apparently satisfied with the display, the Bittern slunk back into the reeds and didn't appear again over the next two hours. But what a show we had seen!
We returned to the reedbed hide twice more over the following two weeks, and spent a combined five fruitless hours where nothing showed except for Water Rails which swam rapidly across the channels between the reed blocks.
The nature reserve that this blog concerns, primarily consists of a decent sized lake surrounded by woodland and scrub. At one end is a reedbed which is overlooked by the hide. The reedbed has been divided into four sections, dissected by three channels that have been cut through the reeds. The channels are inventively known as the left, middle and right channels whereas the blocks of reeds are called the left, left-central, right-central and right hand blocks. The Bitterns move freely between the blocks of reeds and are mostly seen as they cross the channels on their journey across the reedbed. The left and right channels are where the Bitterns are most frequently seen. The middle channel is wider so the birds tend to fly or "jump" across that. My guess is that the Bitterns hunt close to the outer edge of the reedbed and that's why, more often than not, they are seen at the far end of the channels because they move along the lake side edge of the reeds where the water is slightly deeper.
The latest weekends weather was forecast to be wet and very windy but I had a hunch that once the wettest conditions had passed through on Sunday morning then that would be a good time to revisit the reserve again, Saturday had been pretty much a washout. Also I didn't want to travel too far and couldn't be bothered to take a long walk anywhere so another stint at Bittern watching, or not, seemed like a good idea. We arrived at 11:00, which equates to the midday of our last successful visit considering the fact that the clocks were wound back for the winter earlier during the night. Somebody remarked to us once that a few years ago a particular Bittern had been christened the "12:58 Bittern" because it regularly put in an appearance at that time. We saw the "Mad Bittern" at around 12:15 before so maybe that one would appear again at 11:15 this time. Birds can be creatures of habit but I wouldn't expect any to be exactly that punctual. In the event we needn't have worried about any timings.
I had barely scanned the reedbeds and channels when I announced to Mrs Caley, 'There's a Bittern already!'. We had been in the hide less than two minutes and a Bittern had appeared at the closest end of the left channel. It was standing erect next to one of the grit trays that have been speculatively placed to attract Bearded Tits (which have occurred in the reedbeds before). It was looking around warily although we just assumed that it was just being careful and doing what a Bittern always does when emerging from the cover provided by the reeds and into the open.
After a few seconds the Bittern began to stride further out into full view and adopted some very strange poses as it did so. The reason for its consternation became apparent when I spotted another Bittern inching its own way out of the reeds. The first Bittern was clearly getting out of the way of a second Bittern. To say that Mrs Caley and myself were gobsmacked would be a major understatement!
We must be very lucky indeed to have seen two Bitterns, almost as close to the hide as they could be while remaining in the reedbed, within minutes of arriving at the hide. The first Bittern continued to stride very carefully away from the reeds, all the time craning its neck so that it could see the other Bittern which thus far had stayed in the reeds almost fully concealed.
Without us noticing the second Bittern was suddenly in the open and on the tail of the first bird. The problem with taking photos and looking through binoculars is that the field of view is severely restricted and the first Bittern had demanded our full attention so we had actually missed the moment that the second bird had left the reeds. The pursuing Bittern had adopted the same threat posture as the one we saw two weeks before so I guess that it was the same bird and a dominant one at that because it clearly didn't like the other bird and was ousting it from the area. As before all of its feathers were fluffed out making it look much larger and it looked as if it meant business.
The submissive Bittern was threatened enough to take evasive action and spill into the small open lead of water at the bottom of the slope that the hide sits above while the aggressor remained stood on the flattened reeds. From there the dominant bird raised itself up tall but retained the ruffled look including erecting its head feathers which almost looked as if it was wearing a black bonnet! There was no dancing histrionics this time however, it appeared as if the posturing was all that was required to persuade the other bird to put some distance between them.
The two birds stood maybe a metre or so apart for a fair few minutes, one posturing and the other almost bowing in response. I was mesmerised and my camera was probably knackered as I took shot after shot of the action. The fun, for us anyway, stopped when the submissive Bittern melted away into the reeds of the left-central block and was followed by the aggressive bird.
We knew that at least one of the birds would probably appear at the edge of the middle channel and sure enough only a minute later a Bittern fluttered across the channel and stood on the flattened reed platform that the wardens had thoughtfully constructed to give access into the right-central block of reeds. I assumed at the time that it was the yielding bird but having looked at the photos, it seems as if it was the stronger bird owing to the fact that it appeared still "pumped up" and "strutting its stuff". After standing tall and looking ominous for a few seconds it melted away into the reeds.
Now we had one Bittern in the left-central block and one Bittern in the right-central block. I reasoned that the assertive bird would continue through to the right channel and cross that at some point, since we have tracked a Bittern all the way through the reedbed once before. In the event though it was almost half an hour before we saw it emerge into the open channel. It crossed slowly through the water, stood for a while on the other side while taking a good look around and, when satisfied that all was well in its world, disappeared into the right hand block of reeds. We've seen a lot of Bitterns cross from left to right in the right channel but rarely have we seen one make the crossing in the other direction so I imagined that that would be the last we'd see of the bossy bird in this session.
Nothing much happened for the next half an hour although a Water Rail made it all the way from the right hand block of reeds to the left hand block, sweeping through in under a couple of minutes. The Bittern show was far from over though. A Bittern suddenly flew up from the left-central block of reeds but instead of relocating elsewhere just plonked down in the same block a few metres away. That was followed a few seconds later by another Bittern, incredibly it had to be the third Bittern in the reedbed since we knew the whereabouts of the other two, appearing at the far end of the left channel and presumably the catalyst of the other Bittern flying up when that bird had neared the right hand side of the same channel just before. The "newest" Bittern crossed slowly through the channel and crept into the left-central block. So now we had two birds in that block and the other in the right hand block of reeds. I rewrote the old saying to a new version, "Thrice Bittern, none shy".
What was presumably the "third" bird, although it could have been the original belittled bird, then emerged back at the edge of the left channel and crossed back over. As with all of the previous crossings of channels, when the Bittern reached the reed platform it stood for a while and took a prolonged wary surveillance of the surroundings before walking into the reeds.
A couple of minutes later the Bittern appeared again at the far end of the left channel, this time sending the previously relaxed Coots scattering out into the lake. We knew that we still had the three birds, all in their own blocks of reeds, and it was great fun keeping check on the whole reedbed in case one of them moved again. The Bittern turned slowly around and disappeared behind the reeds but re-emerged just a few minutes later and after taking a cursory look around, it strode purposefully down the left edge of the left channel before halting on a flattened reed platform once more. There it had very conveniently chosen a sunlit spot which enabled me to get some faster camera shutter speeds. The bird, obviously still very wary, spent a good few minutes "sky pointing" while turning its head through 180 degrees. The eyes of a Bittern are so placed on their heads so as to easily enable an all round view and almost seem to look downwards which I guess is where most of the interest for a Bittern lies.
Seemingly happy that all was well and it was safe to do so, the Bittern crossed the left channel and into the left-central block.
We were also more than happy, in a little over two hours we had seen three different Bitterns and had had a dozen separate "shows" from them. Never before had we been so spoiled with such views and it made all the blank visits in the past worth it. It really had been a Bittern bonanza!
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