Little Bittern – Oreham Common, Henfield, West Sussex, 1st April 1988
Not sure I have, but with this sketch I was keen to try to capture the 'Grumpy Humpty Dumpty' appearance of the Oreham Common Little Bittern. It looked less than impressed with life.
This was an exceedingly silly example of twitching, fittingly occurring on April Fool's Day. Having seen the Alpine Swift at The Verne, Portland (which had involved driving from Swanage to Portland) Paul Pugh and I then dashed for two hours across Southern England from Portland to Oreham Common, near Henfield (remember visiting Sally Holmes there?). I had a good hire car at this juncture which helped but...... .
Once there, we were parked near a pond adjacent to a minor road where there were some 30 birders grilling ‘it’ at ranges of some 30m. Talk about a budgie in a cage!!!!
Apparently the bird had been rescued exhausted on the beach in Hove, and after being rehabilitated it had been released at the pond, which was part of the nature reserve near the headquarters of the Sussex Wildlife Trust.
Consequently, I was very worried until it moved, but when it did it became a star bird as it began hunting. It stalked about amongst the pond-side vegetation very deliberately, and eventually caught a Smooth Newt, which was seemingly fooled by its body-swerve. After turning it around, it swallowed it and promptly stalked off into the cover.
It was an avian Humpty-Dumpty; it was always egg-shaped due to its hunched shoulders and wings obscuring the tail. The plumage involved a brilliant striking contrast between the black crown, nape, back and wing tips and the rest of the plumage which was a pale peach-brown. The eye was yellow and there was a yellow eye-ring. It had a typical heron type bill which had a yellow base and pink lower and upper mandibles which were black tipped. The legs were yellow-green and chunky.
Little Bittern, Oreham Common, Henfield, West Sussex, April 1988 (photograph credited to unknown).
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