Birding Braunie

Hmmmm. It’s funny but I’m getting a bit fed up with the Bittern. I want this rubbish weather to dissipate and for us all to be basking in glorious spring sunshine. The spring migrants are a month away and what a joy they will be as they sit atop scrub or tree and sing while I – in shirt sleeves – shoot away on my little Nikon with a decent shutter speed for a change. It’s true though that digital cameras are sophisticated enough to give reasonable results in the darkest of days but couple that with a moving subject and things get bad, really bad. So for now, I have had to rely on the elusive Bittern as a subject. This can be an uneasy and often unproductive partnership. So while I wait for the Bittern, I used this female Mallard to practise my digiscoping skills on. A few people have asked me how I get the shots I get. Well, most of the time the shots are pretty poor. I occasionally get a decent image and then hastily run it through Photoshop CC and bingo, better results. When

It’s called the Bittern Watchpoint or more precisely, the Bittern Information Point. It’s not the Water Rail watchpoint or the Sparrowhawk info-point, even less the Cormorant watchpoint. Thing is, the Bittern is a bit special; not every nature reserve has them; in fact, most don’t. The Lee Valley has for years played host to wintering bittern and the park authority recognised the importance of encouraging and attracting as many of these scarce and appealing birds that it could. The reed beds have been carefully managed and now there are healthy swathes of reed any discerning bittern would be happy to hide in – and can they hide. Even though there have been roost counts of up to three bittern in the park (this is about half of what we had last year but that coincides with a mild winter across northern Europe) sighting had been few and far between for a few weeks at Fishers Green, home to the Bittern Watchpoint. Plenty of Smew, Goosander and Water Rail but only glimpses of Bittern.