Male pintail How do we identify birds? Bittern are secretive and the focus is often on listening, and interpreting. Birding can be an aural experience where hearing comes first. Raucous black-headed gulls are audible long before we see them and the distinctive calls of redshank and widgeon tell of their presence. Looking-up where pintail breed I realise I've never heard this favourite because it's vocally discreet. Sound-recordist Chris Watson often features on Radio 4 and it's an evocative listening experience. telling of habit and habitat, the rhythms of the day, of the seasons, which birds are resident, which on passage.
PIntail are elegant and strong sunlight brings out the colours of their breeding plumage. They're dabbling ducks, dipping down and coming up with water droplets trickling off their feathers. They will not breed here but in the north of Scotland, the Western Isles. Their call is subtle and intimate, a duck more seen than heard. Unlike the elusive but vocal bittern. Invariably, the birds found swimming close to the hides are the commoner species, like coot and mallard. Snipe can often be found, silent and still in the reed stubble, another discreet species whose call I don't know although I love to study their plumage, the way colour and pattern is the perfect camouflage in the reed-beds.
Sunlight highlights, and dazzles. A south-facing hide looks directly into the sun so a huddle of birds on a sliver of land appears back-lit and in silhouette. There are snipe and lapwing amongst them. And a shouty species of birder, men with telescopes talk loudly, calling infrequently seen birds like lesser scaup and cinnamon teal. They're competitive in visual ID.
Who is listening to whom and what would we rather shut out? Somewhere in the reed-beds there will be female bittern hearing that resonating boom, so how do they respond? I once spent a long while hidden close to a male cuckoo who called and called, then at last he dropped down from the wall and mated with a female. Had his calling drawn her close? I'd been intent on watching him and she had approached silently.
Water-levels are high and sunlight penetrates alder and willow carr making striking patterns of reflected mossy branches. Against a blue sky the crowns of alder are thick with purplish catkins and willow has an aura of rosy-gold. It's a morning of wonderful light and the pools reflect fair-weather cumulus, blues, and the gold of reed beds.
Sunlight highlights, and dazzles. A south-facing hide looks directly into the sun so a huddle of birds on a sliver of land appears back-lit and in silhouette. There are snipe and lapwing amongst them. And a shouty species of birder, men with telescopes talk loudly, calling infrequently seen birds like lesser scaup and cinnamon teal. They're competitive in visual ID.
Who is listening to whom and what would we rather shut out? Somewhere in the reed-beds there will be female bittern hearing that resonating boom, so how do they respond? I once spent a long while hidden close to a male cuckoo who called and called, then at last he dropped down from the wall and mated with a female. Had his calling drawn her close? I'd been intent on watching him and she had approached silently.
Water-levels are high and sunlight penetrates alder and willow carr making striking patterns of reflected mossy branches. Against a blue sky the crowns of alder are thick with purplish catkins and willow has an aura of rosy-gold. It's a morning of wonderful light and the pools reflect fair-weather cumulus, blues, and the gold of reed beds.
Three female marsh harrier are in looping flight over the reed beds. Dabbling ducks like shoveler and pintail dip their heads and upper bodies into the water and come up with water droplets tricking off them.
We stop in our tracks along the causeway, hearing a bittern boom loudly. There are hidden channels threading through the reed beds and I wonder how these secretive birds move through the reeds in search of the silent females. Cetti's warblers call loudly, unseen. A tree creeper mouses up an alder. And tits appear in mossy branches over a waterlogged ditch. Someone has scattered bird-seed on a branch and they flit down to feed: blue tit, great tit, coal tit and the slender marsh tit. Their return to the clustered seed is a good opportunity to see marsh tit well. A few seconds is long enough for a photo-opportunity.
We're impressed by the work done by the RSPB to ensure all visitors make the most of what's to be found. There are young children here today who are having a great day out. There are notices telling of the lovely scarlet elf cup fungus, of bittern and frogs. Notices alert us to eels which the RSPB are eager to protect. And bittern will thrive on a diet which includes eel and frog.
We stop in our tracks along the causeway, hearing a bittern boom loudly. There are hidden channels threading through the reed beds and I wonder how these secretive birds move through the reeds in search of the silent females. Cetti's warblers call loudly, unseen. A tree creeper mouses up an alder. And tits appear in mossy branches over a waterlogged ditch. Someone has scattered bird-seed on a branch and they flit down to feed: blue tit, great tit, coal tit and the slender marsh tit. Their return to the clustered seed is a good opportunity to see marsh tit well. A few seconds is long enough for a photo-opportunity.
We're impressed by the work done by the RSPB to ensure all visitors make the most of what's to be found. There are young children here today who are having a great day out. There are notices telling of the lovely scarlet elf cup fungus, of bittern and frogs. Notices alert us to eels which the RSPB are eager to protect. And bittern will thrive on a diet which includes eel and frog.
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