Little Bittern

News broke on Tuesday of a female Little Bittern photographed at Stockers Lake on Sunday. Initial searches on Wednesday failed but it was relocated and showed   intermittently until early afternoon before flying down river. I had the car ready to leave from work early on Thursday but there was no news, ditto Friday so I was a bit surprised to hear that it had been relocated this morning.
 Despite feeling a bit rough I made my way down to the aquadrome and eventually got down to the river Colne and met up with numerous Herts birders. Ricky from Tyttenhanger had it's back in his scope and that was all we had for a long time as it moved off into the back of the reeds.
 After a long wait it reappeared under one of the willlows perched for a spell and then made it's way down to the base of the trees where we got very good close, but partly obscured views. It remained here for some time before flying into the reeds. I had moved downstream where Darryl had found a viewpoint but was too slow with the camera. For the next hour it fed in and among the reeds and often gave very good views largely in the open.