Bittern fest

I have been doing a lot of work on Marsh Harriers, what's new, this spring and have had a couple of lucky encounters with Bitterns while watching the harriers. Th elink below goes to my blog post on my latest encounter with a splendid male and a female 

https://www.grahamcatley.com/blog-1/a-splendid-male-bittern

Bittern in warm winter light

 After a very unproductive day with beautiful low winter sun this Bittern made the day as it was first chased by a female Marsh harrier and then performed to perfection in front of the hide; a rare event to get one this close taken with the new Canon R6 mark 2 and Canon 400 DO 2 lens with 1.4x converter - in the first two images it was reacting to a Sparrowhawk that landed in a bush above its head

dancing Bittern

 a memorable Bittern encounter this morning albeit in the worst of light conditions -- story on my website with more images  https://www.grahamcatley.com/bittern

a Bittern at last

 it has taken a long time to bump into a Bittern this year locally but finally saw this one a couple of days ago albeit looking very edgy and clearly not happy in the open with humans about

male Bittern

the blue lores and the location of the black stripes on the head give this bird a bit of an odd look

cryptic Bittern

hard enough to see and a job for manual focus