Bittern, found dead

[Gaza]

A week or so ago, I showed some photos of a Bittern, that was seen at WWT Arundel. There was much excitement as you can imagine

We enquired, about it today, and were informed that it showed up every day for around five days, and then was found dead.

It is thought that it starved. It's body has been sent to Slimbridge for an autopsy.

A real shame.

[Dave66]

Thats very sad to hear, they are beautiful birds. I read some where that they were struggling because the ponds are icing over at the margins where the Bittern feeds plus the small fish they live on have gone into deeper water to avoid the cold.

Very sad

[Picidae]

Originally Posted by Gaza

A real shame.

Why couldn't this have been avoided?. Thousands of people visit Arundel and tonnes of bird seed etc are used to feed the plastic ducks and pinned birds throughout the year, why can't the WWT have got it together to ensure there was supplementary food available for the Bittern as well. The RSPB were together enough on their reserves to organise feeding sprats to Bitterns and this individual was around long enough and enough people went to oggle it to have noticed it was struggling. Arundel WWT isn't a particularly large area and there's enough wardens there to have organised an ice break and feeding (when their not too busy cleaning out swan pens and serving cakes in the tea room)

[Gaza]

Originally Posted by Picidae

Why couldn't this have been avoided?. Thousands of people visit Arundel and tonnes of bird seed etc are used to feed the plastic ducks and pinned birds throughout the year, why can't the WWT have got it together to ensure there was supplementary food available for the Bittern as well. The RSPB were together enough on their reserves to organise feeding sprats to Bitterns and this individual was around long enough and enough people went to oggle it to have noticed it was struggling. Arundel WWT isn't a particularly large area and there's enough wardens there to have organised an ice break and feeding (when their not too busy cleaning out swan pens and serving cakes in the tea room)

Good question, Picidae
And one that i keep asking myself.
But, maybe it wasnt seen by many ( public ), as the day after i saw it, the center was closed for a while, due to the snow.
Thats not to say that the wardens werent there. After all. How else would they have known it had been there for five days.

[thebeard]

such a shame, especially due to the low numbers which visit the UK, thats one less bird which will go home to breed. though it is nature taking its course!

[Dogghound]

We had a bird that came off the sea in October which hit a newly built building and was killed. Quite tragic but nothing to do with the cold.