"I have come to see the Bittern" (1 Viewer)

[foresttwitcher]

so sometimes the entitlement pays off!!!!

This type of entitlement should never, ever pay off...

 

[Prestdj]

My favourite is when the Leach's Petrels appear on the river Mersey in the autumn. It is so bizarre giving directions like its just below that truck!

How embarrassing is it when people are giving great directions and you utterly fail to pick the bird up? (Probably just me to be fair!)

new brighton must have been 2001 stood on the beach

me "leach's petrel".........."going under my tripod now!" my mate said "eh?" it then hit his leg, it was very windy and a great day

 

[THE_FERN]

Sometime

I do think that birders can sometimes be terrible at giving directions, just below the willow tree when there are about a dozen willow trees!

What do you mean. At least you know it's a willow tree. Mostly people just say (in the forest) "it's in the tree"

 

[condor1992]

Lost count of the times I've seen people wait to see Bitterns for maybe half an hour then leave as its getting towards what a birder might call "Bittern light"!

John

I seem to have been uncharacteristically lucky with bitterns in that case. At Lakenheath, entered the Mere hide twice and there it was, just in plain view at the edge of the reeds...

 

[jurek]

How embarrassing is it when people are giving great directions and you utterly fail to pick the bird up? (Probably just me to be fair!)

In the forest, it is normal that a bird is blocked from view except a tiny window in the foliage. Here the trick is to stand directly behind the person seeing it - which is easier said than done, when there are 3 people, with the height from 5 to 7 feet! Eventually, the observer might be clever and say something like: it is invisible from your place, you must go to the left of me.

Otherwise, you can stare all day and even a master of birdwatching would not see the bird. And most bird species will not move between branches, before taking off and disappearing.

I remember a tour with an overall excellent leader who just did not get it. Once he sat at the front of a boat and said: Ocelot, very close, well visible, why you don't see it? 7 people at the back of the boat did not. He should simply move the boat forward.

 

[rezMole]

My first trip to a bird reserve was to Leighton Moss back in December 2004. My partner and I had just started birding. We sat down in a hide, sharing a cheap, small scope (cost about £30 new) and I got on a Bittern straight away. We whispered to each other for about ten minutes about the bird we had located, as we had no idea how to behave in a bird hide. Suddenly one bloke shouted "Bittern!" and proceeded to point it out to the other half a dozen people in the hide. I just thought "this is easy" (how wrong that turned out to be!). Anyway, after that, we were hooked.

 

[rezMole]

On a trip to South Africa, one woman was sitting at the front of the vehicle, next to the driver/guide. She had been on lots of birding trips to Africa and had seen well over half the birds in her Africa field guide. She spent an hour with her head down looking at her "birds of Africa" (whilst the rest of us were scanning around looking for "real" birds). Suddenly she pointed out a bird in her book that she had never seen and said to "her guide" (as she called the driver), "I want to see this bird, it's one I have not seen before". The guide's dry reply was "I'd love to show you one, but we don't really have time to travel up to Tanzania at the moment". I don't think she actually saw any birds on the trip apart from when the guide told her to look at one.

 

[Alcina]

Sometime

I do think that birders can sometimes be terrible at giving directions, just below the willow tree when there are about a dozen willow trees!

Trying to see the Muckleburgh olive-backed pipit. The first three birders I asked gave the following three really helpful responses:

It's in front of us (so not behind the twitch then. Thanks for clearing that up)
It's by some bracken (we were in a clearing entirely surrounded by the plant)
It's in front of a tree...

 

[Owene]

Trying to see the Muckleburgh olive-backed pipit. The first three birders I asked gave the following three really helpful responses:

It's in front of us (so not behind the twitch then. Thanks for clearing that up)
It's by some bracken (we were in a clearing entirely surrounded by the plant)
It's in front of a tree...

What should they have said that was useful while presumably watching the bird.

I’ve had my share of not useful twitch information and I understand the desire to tick a bird but surely looking where they are looking and seeing it yourself is an option in those circumstances and it’s not quite the same as expecting a bittern on a perch

 

[chowchilla]

Many non-birders visit Monteverde NP in Costa Rica to see a quetzal. While queuing up to buy a ticket, there was one clearly visible in the trees across the parking lot. When I pointed this out to people they didn't want to know about it because they weren't in the park yet and had not yet paid $15
Some people I talked to later were disappointed that after paying $15 they didn't see one in the park.

Regarding Bittern, Minsmere RSPB is a great place to see them in the spring.

The first quetzal I ever saw was from the car park at Monteverde. Saw several more, but the first is always hard to beat. Once you know the call, it is hard not to locate it.