Bitterns at Barnes

First post of 2010! ... hopefully I can encourage peeps to start re-posting for 2010.

Took a trip up to the London Wetland Centre yesterday with some shots of Bittern in mind. It showed pretty well at Headley Hide along with a Water Rail and Common Snipe. Missed the Jack Snipe at WWF Hide by just seconds as it went around the corner of an island.

And a Great Tit...

It would be a shame to see the blog be abandoned completely so let's try and keep posting! Anyone had any recent trips or year listing birding to report on?

Cheers, Bill

Norfolk 4th and 5th July 2009

I had a great weekend in Norfolk, starting with a CASPIAN TERN, a lifer, at Welney WWT that I, along with many others, twitched. Also there were Avocets, male Ruffs, Turtle Doves, Yellow Wagtails and Whooper Swans amongst many others. I met James Grundy in real life for the first time and we had a nice chat.

The next day I had 2 Golden Orioles, a British tick, at Lakenheath Fen RSPB along with 2 or 3 Bitterns and several Bearded Tits. I narrowly missed Common Crane. After this site, we moved on to Weeting Heath NWT where there was a single Stone-curlew, a lifer. We didn't have time for the secret Montagu's Harrier site but are returning in a couple of weeks for another stab at the Cranes and to see the Montagu's Harrier.

New birds for year list competition:
CASPIAN TERN
Golden Oriole
Stone-curlew

New total: 202

David.

London Wetlands Centre 9th December 2007

I went up to the London Wetlands Centre on Sunday. I got 43 species all together.
There were many Lapwings, Wildlfowl (including Wigeon) loads of Cormorants, Gulls etc. We watched one Cormorant struggle as it tried to get an absolutely huge carp-like fish down its throat.
Gulls were interesting with a Yellow-legged and a Caspian (I got a phone scoped video of the Caspian). The Caspian was my first confirmed and the Yellow-legged was my second with one at Dungeness the week before.
The highlight was the Bittern that someone eventually located in the reeds (an area of reeds we weren't expecting it to be in) and I got good veiws through the scope and a phone-scoped video (hopefully my videos will improve after Christmas because I am getting a powerful 40x optical zoom digital video camera!)
Enjoy (the Bittern shows better right at the end of the video):