Last Friday Keith and I visited the Wetland Centre at Barnes in West London in search of wintering Bittern. Arriving at the reserve we made our way to Dulverton hide, which has been one of the best sites this winter so far for seeing Bittern as it looks across the lake to the main reedbed, as seen in the picture above. There are probably two Bitterns wintering on the reserve this year, one in each of the main reedbeds. There were the usual collection of waterbirds but no sign of a Bittern. Then we went onto WWF hide, which overlooks another part of the same reedbed but again we drew a blank.
Leaving WWF we were told that a Bittern had been seen in the reedbed on Reservoir Lake from the Tower hide and so we made our way there, but again we were to be unlucky.
Now we had a decision to make. Did we stay where we were or return to Dulverton? We opted to go back to Dulverton, which in the end turned out to be a wrong decision as the bird on Reservoir Lake showed its self again in the afternoon and we drew a blank.
There were still some highlights that we saw as we moved between hides. A Coal Tit on the feeders and a Siskin in the trees surrounding them, a brief view of a Kingfisher as it flashed by us before disappearing, a perched Kestrel and a Yellow-Legged Gull on the main lake were all notable. In all we recorded 42 species but sadly no Bittern. Oh well there is always another day.
Pete's Favourite Things 
Nice pic of the Yellow legged Gull.
You would say that. sorry I forgot the attribution -now corrected