Saturday 11 August, 15:30. Having had an excellent day’s birding with dozens of waders, bearded tit and the konik ponies behaving komically, I and a group of friends decided to go down to Singleton in hopes of seeing the bittern which had eluded us earlier in the day.
We settled ourselves and were content with watching the antics of three young marsh harriers when one friend, for whom bittern was a lifer, said, “Is that a bbb…?” I’d been following his line of sight and was immediately able to confirm that it was, indeed, a bittern sitting at the front of the reeds opposite the hide!
For the next five minutes we watched as the three harriers mobbed the bittern, itself a youngster, with the bittern alternately sky-pointing, fluffing itself up and flattening itself to the reeds. I’d never seen anything like it before.
It must have decided it had had enough bullying as it then flew across the lagoon towards us and went into the reeds to our left. No sooner had it disappeared when the female bittern flew from the nest site across to the Trent. Seconds later the youngster flew out, across the lagoon and on to one of the islands.
What a finale to an already wonderful Blacktoft day.
Pat Crofton
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