Recently I went on a very cold "birding" walk in the Lee Valley Country Park. I stopped for sandwich lunch in the Bittern hide and everyone there was very excited because an elusive Bittern had been spotted. I thought I could see something moving in the distance, so pointed my camera with the longest zoom it could manage and hoped for the best.
It turned out that a Bittern had been spotted, but in a different channel to the one I was looking at! When I realised this, I looked in the right direction and the pesky bird - which was very clearly visible in the water in front of the reeds, just quickly hopped right out of view before I could capture its image. I was absolutely gutted and annoyed with myself for the rest of the day.
However, when I got home and downloaded my photos onto the computer - guess what was hiding in my picture?
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| Camouflaged Bittern in the reeds |
I had seen a Bittern after all - but it was not the one that the others were looking at! I felt very lucky and very elated to see this very shy bird sitting in my photograph. And isn't it very well camouflaged while hiding in the reeds? No wonder it is hard to spot.
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| Bittern in the reeds |
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| Larger view of the well-camouflaged Bittern |
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