Calvert BBOWT; 3-5:30 p.m With Phil, Nick and Gareth between us had 11 separate views of BITTERNS. These included, one on inside edge of reeds briefly, 1 in flight close doing croaking call, 2 together with threat display seen (as yesterday).
Best of all was that between us we located 3 roosting with a 4th suspected - 2 in opposite bank reedbeds and 1 in inside left. Inside bed had 2 areas of heavily jolting reeds tight to left of hide. One jolting area produced one roosting but not second area although hard to view that spot.
Gareth, with his hawk like eyes!, spotted our 3rd bird on opposite bank when virtually dark, just as we had settled for 2. Getting 4 on a relatively small site does seem remarkable but reckon they arrived during the recent big freeze. Most waters in county were frozen over and if feeding reed areas as well as ice adjoining the deeper water roosting spots iced over could have prompted birds from other sites to move. Apart from small area of cut reeds and bit of inside bed Calvert remained ice free. Calvert consisits of very deep clay pits and as foxes seen on frozen lakes in county think open ice free/predator free roosting spots at Calvert would be very attractive to Bitterns.
Much squabbling between the 4 birds and do not no how much longer they will tolerate being in such close proximity to each other (Tim Watts)
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