Drive past a marsh, lakeshore, or river, you’re likely to see a stately great blue heron hunting in the shallows. They are common, impressive, and widespread. Though great blues often stand motionless ...

Readers have been sending me photographs of a bird they can’t quite identify but sort of looks like the illustration of a least bittern in their field guides. I’ve clarified that the bird is a green ...

Bitterns, which are part of the heron family, were once extinct in the UK but returned in the 20th Century A Staffordshire nature reserve has celebrated a record-breaking breeding season for one of ...

A rare and elusive bird has made the Somerset levels a "wildlife tourism hotspot", experts have said. Once close to extinction in Britain, Somerset's population of Bitterns is now thriving and the ...

The American Bittern’s “pumper-lunk” call has got to be one of the strangest sounds I have ever heard. When I first heard it, I thought the sound was coming from some kind of oddball frog, but when I ...

Birdwatchers are revelling at the chance of glimpsing the famously timid bittern as the species makes a comeback to the UK's wetlands. The brown heron-like creatures which skulk among the reeds were ...

Britain's loudest bird - the bittern - has come back from the brink of extinction. In 1997, there were just 11 of the birds but now there are 228 males, according to the RSPB and Natural England. And ...

Numbers of nesting bitterns are at their highest since records began in 1990, with 51 male bitterns recorded across 33 sites in England, according to a survey conducted by the RSPB. Moreover, bitterns ...

They are some of the most elusive birds to nest in the UK. Indeed, they hide so well in their reedbed homes that ornithologists can only estimate bittern numbers by counting the sources of the booming ...

Conservationists hope work to improve the reedbeds where they live will double the numbers of bitterns within a decade. In 1997 the population was so small there were fears the bittern could become ...

The bittern, one of Britain's rarest birds, is booming again after research revealed record numbers across the country. Studies revealed 82 male bitterns calling or "booming" this spring from deep ...