Bitterns gone “Cuckoo”; surely that is a strange title. But that is exactly what we experienced, in a way 🙂

My friends and I were at the Chembarambakkam Lake looking for the Fulvous Whistling Ducks. We had got to see a few of them (you can read about them here). Already feeling joyous on having seen them, we were walking on the lake bund and scanning the water for other bird activity. The lake was massive and looked to have a great potential for birds. Though we had arrived around noon, surprisingly there was still a lot of bird activity. Blue-tailed Bee-eaters seemed to have already arrived along with Barn Swallows. Baya Weavers were still busy nesting. As we observed the birds around, Dhanapal shouted “Cinnamon Bittern!”. We observed the bird flying across from our right to the left. The bird soon landed in the water hyacinth. This time, unlike the usual behaviour I have seen with Bitterns, this continued to sit on top fully exposed. Here is a picture of it:

It seemed to be an adult female. It spent atleast 2 – 3 minutes there. While sitting it stretched its neck back and forth slowly, looking around. It then again took off, did a half circle and landed in another patch of the water hyacinth. This time too it sat fully exposed, followed by similar behaviour. It took off once more and landed, eventually disappearing into the clump of water hyacinth.

We left the spot and moved ahead on the path. As we stood a bit away observing a pair of Fulvous Whistling Ducks, I saw something in flight from the corner of my eyes. “Cinnamon Bittern!” I shouted. This time it was an adult male in flight. Here are a couple of its photos:

No sooner had this one disappeared that we saw another Bittern in flight. This time it was an adult Yellow Bittern!

A bit further and as we saw another Cinnamon Bittern in flight followed by another Yellow Bittern. This time the Yellow Bittern was a juvenile. It seemed it had decided to fly all the way to the other side lake. May be it had not liked our presence 😀 .

By the time we stopped birding, we had seen 4 Cinnamon Bitterns and 6 Yellow Bitterns. Albin joked that the only “usual” Bittern was the Black Bittern. May be it had been just around the bend in the bund that we had not yet reached since we stopped birding 😉 .

You may still be wondering why I gave the title. Hopefully you may have got a hint already reading thus far. Bitterns are usually very shy birds. They are normally seen active around dawn and dusk. Getting to see so many in the middle of the day and that too standing fully exposed for a reasonably long duration, made me think that they may have gone mad (or “cuckoo”) 🙂 . But in general, monsoon is the best time to see the Bitterns, as they become more active in the breeding period. Whatever it was, their sighting had certainly made me go mad with joy 😀 .

Video

Here is a short video that I have compiled showing some of their behaviour. In this you can see the female Cinnamon Bittern in flight as well as perched and then eventually disappear.

This trip itself had been part of the trip we had made to Pulicat Lake to see the Lesser Noddy. And what a trip it had been! Read about it here.