Although I had heard that the occasional Bittern did over winter in this area, I don't think I ever expected to see one. Even when we entered the hide at a local nature reserve and found a row of people gazing hopefully at a patch of reeds, the chances didn't seem that good.

We did though get some good glimpses of the bird and the pictures on this page were obtained by pointing the camera at vaguely the right patch of reed and hoping. The heading photo is untouched (and shows the bird towards the top left hand corner) but the ones below have been heavily cropped and sharpened.