Bittern Bafta?!

We've put together even more video clips of our young bitterns, going about their bitterny business and published them via YouTube.  They are definitely stars in the making and I'm sure the award nominations will come flooding in soon  ;-)  So have a look!.....

We can see that they are feeding themselves now, to a degree at least. That, combined with the fact that they fledged yesterday, means that they are becoming increasingly independent.  So it begs the question, how much longer will they be sticking around?  The honest answer is that we don't know! 

Kate, our Warden, has been chatting with the team at RSPB Blacktoft Sands, to help us work that one out.  With many years of bittern breeding success under their belts, they were able to tell us that in ther large reedbeds on their site, the adults move the young on to a different part of the reedbed only a few days after fledging. They really aren't very tolerant of teenagers, it seems!

Old Moor has a much smaller reedbed area though. We have some more reeds, just over the river at Bolton Ings and this may potentially be an area one or more move on to. It isn't large enough to support all of the young though....  Perhaps the parents will put up with them for a while longer, given there isn't anything suitable that near by? Or maybe that should be that the youngsters will tolerate being pushed about as long as possible, because there is no obvious alternative home without making quite a long flight of discovery?

So, as with lots of things connected to this wonderful development, we're monitoring it very closely and watching with great interest. If you're at Old Moor one evening and see a bittern rising high into the sky, that will almost certainly be a youngster heading off. We would really love to know, if you do and when and in which direction they went, please!!

:)