I was busy from mid morning til nearly 16:00 and in the meantime, it sounded like several people were treated to at least 2 Bittern flying around Lavell's. The pictures emerging seem to suggest neither bird seen at Lavell's today is the WSL individual.
If you aren't on Facebook I can't share the photos Martin sent me, but Martin Seward's shots are very good and show of a well marked and pale bird, with a more or less red eye.
Geoff Emmett's shot is heavily cropped, but appears to be a slightly darker, but still pale marked bird and even though it is not very clear the eye does appear to be more yellow, or pale orange. Gavin Turner caught a nice shot of what I am assuming is the same bird in flight, it has what I would call traditionally dark copper primaries. http://www.berksbirds.co.uk/show_photo.asp?photo_id=10267
The WSL bird, which I could not find tonight is much darker and is too far away to really tell eye colour, but even my recent shot seemed to point to a more red eye colour.
The long and short of it it that we appear to have 3 Bittern, first time since 2012, so we can hope to see them all for at least a month. We should pay attention to their colour phases, as it remains unclear if either of the Lavell's birds, were the one that was seen at WSL on the 19th.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the Shelduck was species number 88 for January and a new record, mine is on 82, with Barn Owl giving me the most trouble considering the number of attempts I have made.
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