Fishers Green Rails

Off to the Bittern Watchpoint at Fishers Green once more for that elusive Bittern. Once again the Bittern was indeed elusive, and when it had been seen in front of the hide recently it was at the other end of one of the rides and difficult to see, so not much use for photography. By way of compensation there were 3-4 Water Rails present, but these were either calling deep inside the reeds, or running across gaps in the reeds and disappearing back into cover. To cap it all the light was pretty poor and I was forced to wind the ISO up to 1600 to stand any chance.

However, after a couple of hours of waiting, a couple of rails did perform and lingered in the open long enough for a couple of shots.

What surprises a lot of people is how readily Water Rails are prepared to take to the water to swim across large stretches of deep water.