We met on Monday and went to the WWT centre in Barnes in London. Our main bird-related goal was to see a bittern. It seemed like a realistic goal. Four had been spotted the day before and there were six in total known to be living there. Also the last time I was there I had seen one. It had been just barely perceptible even through a scope and I would never have seen it if it wasn't for another more experienced birder spending some time helping me. But I saw it eventually and it was definitely a bittern and I had felt that thrill of a rare bird spotted.
The trip started well. There was a pair of Asian short-toed otters swimming about, recently fed, looking all satisfied and waterproof. Then there was a big colourful fish structure that looked like a room of some sort. We were intrigued and amazed. It looked like a room, but the door/mouth led nowhere. It looked like a fish that had suddenly grown really big and was now stuck in its shed. Turns out in real life it was an ice cream hut.
The first few hides were empty and peaceful and we gazed for a while at the lapwings, geese and ducks, some of them upending themselves to feed, some of them shovelling about with their shovel beaks, and there were also some ostracised cormorants on their own island. We scanned the reeds at the edges of the water for bitterns but we couldn't see any.
Bitterns are very hard to spot because they don't come out much and they're the same colour as their reed bed homes, and also because they don't even really look that much like birds.
We went on to the main hide to seek news of bittern sightings. It's a pretty amazing hide. It's like a watchtower, with two floors and a 360 degree view of the reserve. When we got up to the top, we asked one of the chief birders if he had seen any bitterns. He said he'd seen one in the first hide but not in this one.
We looked out. A hide has a special kind of quietness. Everyone is waiting for someone else to spot something interesting. We moved between windows, our bare hands on binoculars getting colder, then we came together to have some vegetabley tea from a thermos. Even though no bitterns had been spotted in this hide, we stayed there for a while. Not much was going on, but we didn't mind. There were two coots fighting and that was entertaining, but not really any especially exciting birds.
Finally, as if waking from a dream, we realised that we should be going to the hide where the bittern had been spotted. We hurried onward, but the hide was locked. We had left it too late. It felt a bit like someone was shutting us out for being too slow. It was OK though, we went on and we found some exhibits about flying narwhals and lego dams and multicoloured poo and then we searched the box of bird badges in the shop for some good ones (I got a spoon-billed sandpiper and she got a kingfisher, I think). It was great.
