Bird of the week - Bittern

The bittern is a rare bird in this country and is on the amber list in the UK (having been red-listed until 2014).  We have more than 100 breeding pairs with perhaps 600 or so birds in the winter.  In 2017 there were 166 "booming" bitterns (males in breeding condition) in the country, an increase from a low of 11 in 1997.  In my local nature reserve in Gosforth Park a few bitterns arrive every summer and stay until the following spring.  A lot of effort has been put into improving the habitat in the reed beds in the hope that one day bitterns might breed here although so far they haven't. Ours are elusive when they first come back but seem to get easier to see as the winter goes on.  At this time of year we will expect to see them every day, either flying from place to place across the reed beds or suddenly breaking cover and flapping across the pool before crashing into the reeds on the other side.  They are elegant in flight but not on take-off or landing.

The bittern is also known as the great bittern or Eurasian bittern and is found across Europe and Asia in the breeding season.

Yellow: breeding, green: year round, blue: non-breeding.

By Cephas - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8677345

The bittern is Botaurus stellaris, Botaurus because its booming call sounds like a bull and stellaris from its starry plumage.  Unlike its relatives grey herons and egrets it is an elusive bird and, as you can see from the photos, it is beautifully camouflaged in the reeds.

Thomas Bewick wrote about the bittern in A History of British Birds, vol ii, in 1832.

The Bittern is a shy, solitary bird; it is never seen on the wing in the day time; but sits, commonly with the head erect, hid among the reeds and rushes in the marshes, where it takes up its abode, and from whence it will not stir, unless disturbed by the sportsman.

Perhaps bitterns are a little easier to see now that they are not hunted and feel a little safer. This is Bewick's engraving.

 Archibald Thorburn made several paintings and sketches of bitterns.

You can listen to a bittern booming in Kate Humble's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day here.