Today's guided walk started off in fine, almost warm weather, and finished as the first few spots of rain fell. In between times, we found all the duck species known to be present right now, including goldeneyes and pintails. There were lots of opportunities for people to look closely and compare the similar species - goldeneyes, tufted ducks and pochards, drake pochards and wigeons, or the female dabblers (gadwall, wigeon, mallard, shoveler and teal).
The real highlight, however, came farilt early in the walk, when one of our volunteers spotted a bittern that was roosting in the reeds in Elney Lake, quite close to our viewpoint. The bird was motionless, illustrating how well camouflaged bitterns are in brown reed stems. This was the first time two of the participants had ever seen a bittern; two others had only ever seen bitterns in flight, at Minsmere and Titchwell. These people were thrilled, and that makes an event special for us too.
Later on, we saw a Caspian gull on Moore Lake. Gull's aren't everyone's favourites, perhaps because there are so many different plumages that gulls show as they get older. This one was an adult, standing alongside lesser black-backed, common and black-headed gulls. It was a bit distant, but our powerful telescope provided the means to see the birds quite well, and compare it with the others that were roosting with it.