Little Bittern

The Brown Booby found exhausted on Hove Beach on 2nd January took me back almost 34 years to one of the more improbable and memorable experiences of my birding lifetime. It's a tale that's been told before but hopefully people won't mind if I tell again, especially as it took place no more than a mile to the west of where the Booby was found. 

On 30th March 1988 I was driving eastwards along the A259 and had stopped at the traffic lights by Hove Lagoon. Something caught my eye and to my utter amazement there in the gutter on the side of the road next to where I had stopped was what I recognised immediately as a male Little Bittern! Once the traffic lights had changed, I drove on a bit, pulled up on the side of the road (there was less traffic then) and ran back, grabbing the bird before it could fall victim to a passing car. In the absence of anything to put it in, I sat it on the back seat of the car where it quickly adopted an erect alarm-posture. From Hove Lagoon to Denmark Villas (where we lived at the time) was only a couple of miles allowing me to get it home safely and show it to my incredulous wife Bridget and a short while later both Martyn Kenefick and Dave Sadler. We checked it over and there were no visible signs of injury, so we assumed it was just very tired and probably hungry though it did chose to ignore a tempting plate of pilchards! Soon, however, it began to show signs of recovery, becoming more alert and active, and attempting to spear any passing fingers with its bill. It then leapt out of the box we were keeping it in and flew from the kitchen to the lounge where it attempted to conceal itself, taking up its alarm-posture in a large rubber plant in the corner of the room!

At this point we decided that the bird was uninjured and considered suitable sites for possible release. Dave's garden pond was quickly eliminated and we agreed on Oreham Common pond (near Henfield) and released the Little Bittern there that afternoon. It flew to the far side of the pond and, after a few minutes acclimatisation, caught and ate its first newt. News of its presence soon became available on Birdline allowing many hundreds of birders to see what was an extremely obliging bird over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Little Bitterns have a reputation for often being notoriously elusive, skulking in dense reedbeds, but this was quite the opposite feeding actively right out in the open along the edge of the pond.

The bird was perfectly fit and able to fly, but seemed to prefer to climb, sometimes appearing quite ungainly as it clambered amongst brambles and bushes. It seldom failed when hunting, almost every 'strike' catching a newt which it would then shake and kill before swallowing. I have heard some people say that these were Great Crested Newts (a European Protected Species) but I think its more likely that they were the commoner (and not protected) Smooth Newt. After a week or so, its prey became scarcer and it spent more time pacing the banks of the pond searching for food, rather than quickly feeding up and roosting for quite long periods high up in the brambles at the back of the pond, as had been the case. It also became bolder with time, showing no fear of people, and even had to be shooed away from the adjoining road at times.

At the time, 30th March was an exceptionally early date for a Little Bittern to occur in the UK. It was last seen on 12th April and was the 29th record for Sussex.

Many thanks to Dave Sadler for the photographs and a copy of the article he wrote for Birding World (May 1988) which I have quoted from extensively.