One of the most important things about watching wildlife is to take the time to stop, wait and watch as often as possible. I am the first person to admit that I am not very good at this (as you will hear about later on!)
At this time of year, Mark, one of our volunteers can often be found up on the washland viewpoint in the afternoons watching and waiting for the wildlife to "come to him" so to speak. On Friday afternoon, he was rewarded by great views of an otter. He watched it swim along the river, through one of the sluices and into the washland pool. What an ingenious creature! There was also plenty of other things to see, including two whooper swans on the washland pool and a barn owl hunting nearby.
That brings things neatly on to me. I said in my post on Friday that I saw my first "Lakenheath Fen" bittern for a couple of months on Thursday. Now, some of you may have been surprised by this as I work here and spend at least five days a week here! However, I am usually only out on the reserve in the mornings before work and while I am out, I am not only looking for wildlife, I am enjoying a fairly brisk paced walk to stay fit (especially at this time of year when it is dark in the evenings!)
It took me a long time to realise that the reason why I rarely see bitterns here is that I spend too much time walking and not enough time waiting and watching. I tried to break the mould yesterday morning and spend half an hour at New Fen viewpoint just waiting and watching over the reedbed. Sure enough, I was soon rewarded when a bittern flew low across the pool right in front of me. It tried to land at the other side of the pool but something shooed it off. That something was another bittern that was lurking at the edge of the pool. The first bird then begrudgingly returned to its original position. The second bird then through some classic "bittern shapes" in the reedbed, just like these that Ken took here a couple of years ago:
Image credits: Ken Clegg
All I can say is that I have certainly learnt my lesson about the importance of stopping, waiting and watching!
I tried my new tactic later on down at Joist Fen viewpoint in the hope of seeing the male hen harrier that appeared on Thursday. Although I didn't see it, during a 45 minute watch and wait at the viewpoint, I saw a great variety of things. This included a bittern, at least nine marsh harriers and a great egret in flight over the reedbed. Also, a flock of at least 100 whooper swans flew west along the river and a common buzzard was soaring over the west end of the reserve. Not bad at all!
I returned to the visitor centre to find out that I had just missed the male hen harrier. Oh well, I obviously didn't spend quite enough time watching and waiting after all then! We hope to see you soon.
Yes they are great pictures! It was great to see the whooper swans. They were really rather noisy as well!
It's always worth sitting and waiting for a while - I wish I'd been there to see all those whooper swans! Beautiful photos of the bittern.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.