Bittern at Marbury Country Park : 15th February 2016

Bittern at Marbury Country Park : 15th February 2016

After our visit to Newchurch Common where we got a “year tick” in the form of a Smew, we fancied adding another “year tick” that had been reported. This one was a more familiar bird but not always an easy one to locate – a Bittern in the Coward reedbed at the edge of Budworth Mere. The, almost, impossible to find bird would probably have evaded us if we had not encountered a birder who already had it in his scope.

Unfortunately for us he wasn’t able to describe to us exactly where it was and we spent a long time trying to locate it. In the end he found it in my scope for me and, of course, I had interpreted his description entirely incorrectly ! It turned out to be so static and well-hidden that I only once managed, for a few seconds only, to find it with binoculars. With a scope at full stretch though it was possible to get good views. It would only occasionally blink or move very slightly; at one point it actually stretched its head up fully but such movements were rare and indicated that it was probably half asleep.

While we were watching the Bittern we also heard a Water Rail “squealing”. There were some of the usual suspects on the water but we only really stayed in the area of the hide because the whole park was absolutely full of families and dogs it being the start of half-term.

We contented ourselves with sitting there and between letting other people see the Bittern in my scope we took in the feeders where there were the usual range of Tits, a Reed Bunting and – another “year tick” to add to Smew and Bittern for the day, a Nuthatch. Around the area I also saw a Jay and a Buzzard.

Bird Sightings : Budworth Mere