Those Yanks coming over here....

If a rare bird decides to visit our shores it is normally best to drop everything and go for it straight away. There is no guarantee they will stay for a day, couple of days, week or month. The longer you leave it the more likely you are to "dip" on the bird or go to see it on the day after it departed. I've done this in the past, with the green heron from 2008 being the one that hurts most. It stayed from the 19th of October to the 9th of November and I went for it on the 10th of November!!! Lesson learned but force majeure often means you can't get away. This was the case with the American bittern which was first seen on the 7th April in Suffolk. Initially it was very elusive with stories of people spending whole days waiting to see it or having very brief 10 second flight views. That and planning days when I could get away meant that by the 26th April I still hadn't seen it. It is very rare here although there have been 37 sightings in the UK before this one. Finally about a week ago it started to play ball, and developed a pattern where it was seen for extended periods feeding in the late afternoon. So, when a work meeting finished earlier than expected I dived into the car at lunchtime and set off for Suffolk.
The site was Carlton marshes, north of Minsmere and just inland from Lowestoft. I'd never been there before but there were a few other birders around when I got into the car park about 3.15. One had been to see it before and was coming back for a second bite so I joined him on the 20 minute walk to the viewing area. Apparently he had left his wife at the top of the road waiting for a bus to go shopping in Lowestoft. I'll come back to him later though.

This was the ditch where it often showed late in the day in an area next to the reedbed.

For about an hour the assembled horde, roughly 40 or 50 strong I suppose, staked out this area of the marsh, spread out along a 100 yard front. Apart from a marsh harrier and a yellow wagtail there was no sign of anything interesting though. Finally a bloke standing near to me shouted out "in flight, behind the willow tree". That of course is not much use in a large marsh - which trees?? By the time he explained where, it had dropped out of sight roughly 200 yards away. The throng gathered up their 'scopes and yomped to this new area to spend another 30 minutes staring at a bird-free marsh! It had to be there somewhere but where? Bitterns are notoriously skulky and tend to prefer walking to flying so can disappear for long periods of time even when you know where they are. Gradually we started to disperse, some back to the first area, others further along the marsh to a raised river bank. I noticed a small group of 4, one of whom was my mate from earlier with the wife in Lowestoft, up on the bank. They were staring intently through their 'scopes at something. They were still doing it two minutes later. I alerted those immediately near me and we agree they were on something and we weren't. About 4 of us moved and that started the rush. Suddenly there was a mass stampede starting as we realised they must be on it.

As we got close there were about a dozen or so gathered on the bank. They pointed to a ditch in front of them and told us to look on the left hand side.

As you can see it is some way away and not exactly open ground. Within a few seconds though I had a bird in the weedy margins poking its head out: the bittern had given itself up!!!!!

It is in the photo above doing what bitterns often do - being very hard to see. For about 30 minutes it worked its way along the ditch finding lot to eat in the water margins, sometimes showing itself quite well albeit distantly.

There is no difficulty telling it apart from our Eurasian bittern- apart from subtle things like a longer beak it is a humbug of a bird with gorgeous stripes on its belly and flank. It gradually came a bit closer but always hugged the bank. For context these photos are with a 500mm and a 1.4 or 2x converter and heavily cropped!!

By now the crowd had swelled as all the birders had got the message and moved to where we were. I was still with my mate from earlier, who had now been joined by his wife who wasn't very happy. Apparently no bus came to take her shopping so she made the best of a bad job and joined us twitching. It took her ages to find it in her husbands 'scope and she likened the bird to an old man, which no one really understood.

It feeds quite unlike our bittern. Instead of waiting and pouncing it was marching up and down the bank spearing into the water when it saw a delicate morsel. Too far way to see what it was eating but it seemed pretty successful, presumably that being the reason it has stayed so long.
My mate was on the phone by now. He had alerted a nearby friend who was trying to get to us. The walk was over 30 minutes now from the car park and not straight forward. He was trying to give directions but his friend was clearly lost. The bird as well was walking away from us and risked going out of sight round a bend in the stream.

In the end we could see his friend about 4 or 5 hundred yards away and he was told to run as it was really close to disappearing. His wife, who was clearly not a bird watcher chirped up with "well, its not the end of the world if he doesn't make it". The 10 birders nearby, who had been following the saga went quiet. He said to his wife in a sotto voce way "actually, it is"!! He finally made it just in time to see the bittern before it kept walking away from us.
It was now almost 6 and I was 3 hours from home so I, and to be fair most of the others, started the trek back to the car park. Very happy with that. A mega life tick and all things considered good views. As a post script though, after I left it did relocate back to the first area we were in and gave the late comers stunning views down to 30 yards. If it stays I may have to go back for another bite, it is a stunning bird.