Bittern by Graham Catley
Andy Brown, Gillian Gilbert and Simon Wotton
Abstract Once widespread and even locally numerous across the lowlands of the UK, the Eurasian Bittern Botaurus stellaris had been extirpated by a combination of habitat loss and persecution by the late 1880s. After the species returned, at the start of the second decade of the twentieth century, numbers increased to a peak in the 1950s, before falling precipitously to a low point in 1997, when the population was only just into double figures. Extinction – for a second time – was averted only by a concerted conservation effort to restore the larger reedbeds which still contained Bitterns and those from which the birds had most recently been lost. A programme to create extensive new reedbeds also began at this time, with both efforts supported by detailed research, which identified the key factors affecting reedbed use by Bitterns. To date, Bittern numbers have responded well, though work continues to refine our knowledge and to identify the benefits to other wildlife of management aimed at further increasing Bittern numbers and productivity. But the future of Bitterns in the UK is far from secure, with climate change, through sea-level rise and drying in the southeast, threatening to undermine much that has been achieved. A reinvigorated reedbed creation programme is now underway, which should provide a secure future for Bitterns in the UK. This paper tells the full story of Bitterns and of the Bittern conservation effort in the UK.
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