Bitterns have had their most successful year since they recolonised the UK in 1911. This year there have been 86 booming males - up from last year's 82 (and we had thought the cold winter might clobber them).
This is a conservation success story - and a nail biting one! I remember in 1997, when numbers dipped to just 11 booming males, that it felt like our years of work weren't paying off! But things take time and you have to have faith - and luck - and great staff involved.
Norfolk and Suffolk still hold the majority of the UK's bitterns - 55 out of the 86. However, the increasing numbers in Cambridgeshire (8) and Somerset (13) are great news - these are sites that are distant from the coast and therefore can't be affected, like many East Anglian sites, by sea level rise and salt inundation. I'm particularly thrilled that bitterns are doing so well in Somerset - it took them a while to get there but they are really enjoying sites such as our Ham Wall nature reserve.
And it really is a heron year, what with purple herons and little bitterns adding themselves to greh herons, little egrets and a few cattle egrets as nesting species. And spoonbills are putting more effort into becoming regular breeders too. What will be next? Great white egrets are definitely on the cards - watch this space! And glossy ibises are becoming commoner too.
Noticeably, many of these species are benefitting from the RSPB's and others' habitat restoration and recreation work. And, noticeably, these are southern species which are being pushed north by changing climates - probably. What might be next? A variety of warblers perhaps - fan-tailed? moustached? more Savi's? maybe penduline tits and bluethroats? It's fun to guess but our track record of speculation is not very good so I'd rather wait and see.
A last thought. Would you know how to estimate the number of booming bitterns in the UK each year? It's quite a task and involves lots of travel to known and suspected sites, a bit of time spent on 'wild bittern' chases, many early mornings and analysis of tape-recordings to identify individually characteristic 'booms'. Bittern monitoring is a joint programme by the RSPB and Natural England. With government cuts there may only be the money to count some bitterns next year.
Hi bordercollie thanks for your kind words when I was in hospital.
Thanks for using your blog for this Mark.
Any news on the ones at Leighton Moss? I had a feeling that they were on the decline.
Good vision, good work.
Really good news on Bitterns Mark there does seem to be several at Ham Wall and next doors N E reserve,think someone saw 5 flying together.What a pity the work to improve numbers of farmland and woodland birds not having the same benefits so far.
Brilliant and would echo redkites observations in that at the reserve I volunteer at Upton Warren in the midlands we have noticed an increase in Bittern numbers overwintering (3 last year - remarkable for such a small reserve) and for the first time one turned up in June and another (possibly the same individual) in July. Are these individuals on the way to or from Somerset further south? or Juveniles pushed out of territories? Who knows but either way they are most welcome!