The bittern is a thickset heron with all-over bright, pale, buffy-brown plumage covered with dark streaks and bars. It flies on broad, rounded, bowed wings. A secretive bird, very difficult to see, as it moves silently through reeds at water's edge, looking for fish. The males make a remarkable far-carrying, booming sound in spring. It's very small, reedbed-dependent population make it an Amber List species.
It is also a Schedule 1 species.
Unlike the similar storks, ibises, and spoonbills, herons, egrets, pelicans, and bitterns fly with their necks retracted, not outstretched.
Eurasian bitterns feed on fish, small mammals, amphibians and invertebrates, hunting along the reed margins in shallow water. British records include eels up to 35 cm (14 in) and other fish, mice and voles, small birds and fledglings, frogs, newts, crabs, shrimps, molluscs, spiders and insects. In continental Europe, members of over twenty families of beetle are eaten, as well as dragonflies, bees, grasshoppers and earwigs. Some vegetable matter such as aquatic plants is also consumed.
Males are polygamous, mating with up to five females. The nest is built in the previous year's standing reeds and consists of an untidy platform some 30 cm (12 in) across. It may be on a tussock surrounded by water or on matted roots close to water and is built by the female using bits of reed, sedges and grass stalks, with a lining of finer fragments. Four to six eggs are laid in late March and April and incubated by the female for about twenty-six days. After hatching, the chicks spend about two weeks in the nest before leaving to swim amongst the reeds. The female rears them without help from the male, regurgitating food into the nest from her crop, the young seizing her bill and pulling it down. They become fully fledged at about eight weeks.
The Eurasian bittern has a very wide range and a large total population, estimated to be 110,000 to 340,000 individuals. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its overall conservation status as being of "least concern because although the population trend is downward, the rate of decline is insufficient to justify rating it in a more threatened category. The chief threat the bird faces is destruction of reed beds and drainage and disturbance of its wetland habitats. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. The southern race has suffered catastrophic decline during the 20th century due to wetland degradation and, unlike the northern race, is of high conservation concern.
In the United Kingdom, the main areas in which the Eurasian bittern breeds have been Lancashire and East Anglia with an estimated 44 breeding pairs in total in 2007. However, the Lancashire population at Leighton Moss RSPB reserve has declined in recent decades, while bitterns have been attracted to new reed beds in the West Country. In Ireland, it died out as a breeding species in the mid-19th century, but in 2011 a single bird was spotted in County Wexford and there have been a number of subsequent sightings. In the 21st century, bitterns are regular winter visitors to the London Wetland Centre, enabling city dwellers to view these scarce birds.
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