Well after returning back from Turkey black as soot, I was much relived that I had not missed many megas, Oriental Pratincole being the only regrettable incident. I was pleased that the Little Bittern was still in Somerset, so I decided to go down on Sunday 14th with Richard V. I had a lie in, as I was still a bit jetlagged, and we finally left Lichfield about 4am, getting on site for 6am. Within about 10 minutes on the reserve we heard it calling, but with the fog (different fog to listing police) curtailing visibility to about 100 metres we were going to struggle to see it. We met up with one or two others and did a loop around where we thought it was calling, but again no luck, so we went back up to the old railway line and staked it out from there. After a while it was claimed in flight by a dubious couple of birders, flying left but we just could not get on it. However, I must say that it did not call again after that.
We decided to walk further down the railway line talking to several birders around the watchpoint area, some whom saw it at 4.45am - that'll teach us for having a lie in. By now the fog had lifted and we have good views of several Bitterns flying over, but naturally no sign of the Purple Heron. Time was pushing on and we wanted to be back home by early lunchtime, so at about 8.30am we decided on one last gasp, and go to where it was seen at 4.45am. No sooner had we got there, then it flew out of the reedbed from left to right at about 40 metres. Bloody good views and it really went down to the wire as we thought we would go home empty handed. 387 BOU thank you very much.
The way back to the car was interesting as there was a family to 2 Mute SWans and 4 cygnets on the path, which took about 20 minutes to negotiate around, which did not help the timekeeping plans. Oh, well all in all a successful morning, and off home we went.
