A pair of elusive Bittern, gave me a morning never to forget

As wildlife photographers, we all have a list of species that we hope one day, we might be lucky enough to capture on camera and I have spent many years with the 'Bittern', firmly at the top of my own personal list. They are one of the most elusive birds and I have spent hundreds of hours on locations where I know they are breeding, but apart from occasionally hearing their unique 'booming' call and a fleeting glimpse, I have never until now been able to get an acceptable image of these prehistoric looking birds.

a very rare 'head on' image of a Bittern coming in low over the reed beds to land.

I had arrived on site at 06.00 hrs and set up my gear in the hide, which would be my position for the next 6 hours. Flask of coffee and a couple of 'tea cakes' to keep me sustained, I was ready for a long haul and hoping to see the Marsh Harriers that call this reserve home.

Within half an hour, the male Marsh Harrier was up and hunting and although keeping its distance, it allowed me to rattle off a few images, which at least justified my early start and motivated me to concentrate on the area of marshes in front of the hide.

There are 5 pairs of Marsh Harriers at this location and this male was busy throughout the morning.

At around 07.30, I was joined in the hide by a good friend and whilst we both photographed the Harriers and water fowl that live on the reserve, we both commented on the fact that neither of us had ever experienced a decent view of a Bittern in all of the years that we had been visiting this site.

Hardly had that conversation taken place, when he shouted 'Bitterns', and pointed off to our left, where not just one, but a pair of Bitterns were airborne and flying in our direction!

The sound of our camera shutters firing at ten frames per second, seemed ear shattering, but when you have the 'holy grail' in front of you, your finger is well and truly pressed on the shutter release!  The birds flew past the hide from left to right, before circling back around and coming back from the oppposite direction to receive another burst of shutter activity. To our surprise, they dropped into the reeds just 100 mtrs away!

We both just sat in silence, as the enormity of what had just happened started to register in our brains and we began to recover the abilty to speak again. This was quickly followed by checking our camera screens to confirm that we had indeed got our settings right and managed to capture some decent images.

What follows, includes a lot of similar images, but with these birds, EVERY shot counts and is its own unique image of a seldom photographed bird.......especially 'in flight'.

To obtain a shot of two birds together, was incredible and i'm unlikely to ever achieve it again!

What followed, turned an incredible morning into an experience that I will almost certainly never witness again. Over the following two hours, these two birds took to the air again on two separate occasions and each time treated us to a 'fly pass' within range of our equipment!

To be honest, I would have been delighted to have just got one decent shot of a Bittern. To come away with over 300 images has left me slightly bewildered and shell shocked....even 3 days later, as I write this!

Next week, im off to photograph Ospreys and if it's half as successful as this shoot, I will be beyond happy!

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