Eurasian Bittern Botaurus stellaris
Living close to several areas of reedbeds I come across Bitterns pretty regularly and have a lot of images of them from the last 12 years but December 6th produced an exceptional encounter. I went out with no real expectations of seeing anything let alone getting any images in the atrocious light with rain threatened by mid-morning. A Bittern appeared in an open channel and I took a few standard shots to check what images looked like at 6400 ISO on the Canon R6 mainly. From my location in the hide I lost it when it caught a massive Pike and by the time I had moved it it swallowed it! Shot of the day missed. Then a while later it reappeared and started stretching up and fluffing out its neck but there appeared to be nothing in the air above it. I have seen them posturing and strutting around in the past but never within decent photographic range so took a few shots of the back of its neck. Then it suddenly ran out into the open and started dancing around madly throwing its head and neck back and forth and, pointing its bill up at the sky and into the reeds and waving its wings about. At times it looked like a displaying Buff-breasted Sandpiper! Eventually it just stopped and went back to fishing completing a most bizarre encounter. It was at this point when I looked on the back of the camera that I realised even at 5000 ISO I had been on 1/250th second and its dance moves were somewhat fast but it was pleasing to see a few were sharp at least.
All of the images are with the Canon R6 and Canon 400DO2 with the Canon 2x converter; 1/250th second at f8 and 5000 ISO
