Bittern : male booming (dawn) : RSPB Otmoor

A male Eurasian bittern (Botaurus stellaris) 'booms' from a relatively open position amongst the reedbeds.

This clip was filmed on an #iPhoneXs around fifteen minutes before sunrise at RSPB Otmoor nature reserve, Oxfordshire, UK, using the phonescoping technique. I was filming a pair of bitterns in the distance when I caught sight of this male sitting around 95m from my position. Luckily he stayed in sight for a little while, during which he boomed shortly after a brief threat display - the threat display presumably to something overhead or nearby which I didn't spot.

The actual conditions were quite a bit darker than it appears here; the necessary high-ISO filming resulting in quite a lot of video 'noise' and lack of fine detail in the original file. There's also some 'heat haze' contributing to a slightly wobbly image, even though the sun hadn't yet appeared over the horizon.

Shooting at such a distance meant that the boom call ended up being around a third of a second behind the image in the original clip, so the audio has been adjusted in the edit to bring it back into sync.

[jenniferann]

What a magnificent bird!!! 😍 Magical beauty 😍🐦

[Havoc]

Love the bittern, nearly outdone by the cetti's warbler, nice mix of reedbed sounds 😊

[KayGreylai]

Sounds off at about 1:18 sounds kinda like an oboe for the peoole who arent sure what their looking for.

[bohdaj]

incredible .... exactly like a cow such a small bird

[fredMplanenut]

With that great mix of bird call, he can't get a boom in edgeways.

[harrywhitehead]

Allegedly one of the inspirations behind the bunyip

[ascensiondoorway]

I can hear a chorus of birds around it - but when it shudders then opens & closes its beak I hear nothing 😐

[ZhouRL]

That type of heron sounded like a giant cuckoo (Canadian Goose in background)