May I take this opportunity to wish all friends of Roswell a Happy and prosperous New Year and I hope that 2010 treats you well.
Ok, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of today’s events; the BITTERNS at Roswell! It was reported last week that two Bitterns were sighted on the main Pit at Roswell (the sailing pit). Having received an email that there was a picture available on the Internet, I quickly checked it out. (I do not know the person who took the image, but whoever you are – thank you!)
The bird was unmistakably a Bittern, and the location was unmistakably Roswell; - Ker-ching! The image that sparked off the alert can be seen here at the link shown,
BUT BEFORE you jump off this page to look at the original picture on the link here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shelley_dave/4234831776/ please read on; we have our own images of the Roswell Bitterns just a few scrolls further down on
on this page so you don't have to go anywhere just yet to get your Bittern fix for the day.
If you know Roswell then you will not have any trouble identifying the location of where the picture was taken. That’s one in the eye for all the people that refused to acknowledge that Bitterns were even in the area, never mind that they used the pit at all. I’m sure that some ‘Nay-Sayers’ will continue to dispute the pictures or claim that the images in some way have been doctored, but I guess the Earth is still flat and the Sun continues to go around the Earth and Man never landed on the moon… I rest my case.
Well that was the first bit of excitement, and so I decided to get down to Roswell last Sunday seeing if I could improve on the image by getting a clearer picture. Sadly, after several hours out in the cold I returned home without sight of a Bittern, and much more importantly without any pictures... Jump forward to today and the story changes quite dramatically.
When I arrived today, there was no sight of the Bittern(s) on the main pit, so I decided to take a tour around the rest of the area to see what was about. A quick trip around the nature trail down to the Railway Bridge proved to be just the thing. While lying prostrate in the snow my eye was caught by the movement of a
water rail (see images a little lower down this blog). I had seen them and heard them at Roswell before (sounds like a pig squealing / grunting) but had never managed to get a clear shot. Today was my day and so I clicked away, happy that it was a new bird to add to the Roswell blog site... I thought that was going to be my consolation prize for the day. I got up and moved around the pit and sat down in the snow with my camera on my lap and reached inside my coat pocket to get out a sweet as my reward for capturing the images of the water rail.
Then this happened…
Without warning (from right to left) a Bittern flew right past my head and dropped into the reeds to my left. These are a few of the first images I managed to snap off with the camera as the Bittern was trying to close its wings after landing in the tangle of reeds.
*NB These first 3 images I have
not made 'zoomable' but the later pictures
can be expanded by clicking on them once. These first images also show how well hidden the birds can be even when flailing about!
Ok, so heart in my mouth, I tried to adjust the settings on the camera because the reeds were affecting the auto-focus. I thought that if I could get it quickly into manual I could control where the focus point was. I then managed to steal these shots.
Click Images for Larger Pictures
With a few more seconds and a few more pictures in the camera, I thought things were going well… No sooner had I made the change on the camera body and lens, to manual focus, the Bittern decided that it was not going to settle and launched itself out of the reed bed! I was now left trying to play catch up with a manual zoom, frozen fingers and excitedness that rendered my fingers and coordination almost useless.
The next few shots are 'as they unfolded'; unfortunately they are a little out of focus, out of frame or a combination of the two! Normally I would not post pictures that I was not happy with, but for this bird, I'm happy to make an exception. With such a rare sight, my view is almost any picture is worthy of sharing. My next goal is to improve on these shots, so I will practice improving my speed and dexterity on switching between auto and manual zoom and getting the bird centralized in the shot! - I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did taking them. Keep tuned for further updates.
Up!
Chris Hughes 09/01/2010
