Birdwatcher Hans de Zwart (69) has finally succeeded after seven years of waiting, paying attention and ‘hunting’ with the camera. He was able to photograph a beautiful bittern. “The bittern was at the top of my wish list for years to be photographed,” says Hans. “And now it finally, finally, succeeded! I was in the Biesbosch with a buddy. We drove into the Muggenwaard and suddenly the bittern fell from the sky, to stare at us ten meters away from the reeds.”
“The bittern is a difficult bird to photograph,” says the hobbyist from Rossum in Gelderland. On Saturday he finally got a Bittern in front of his lens in the Biesbosch. “They are birds that like to sit in the reeds and hardly show themselves. You can hear them. They make a typical sound that is called ‘hoemping’.”
“A sound that has ensured that I have been waiting for years at reed beds where I heard a bittern calling,” says Hans. “It’s always been that way, because they didn’t show up.”
“After seven years finally success.”
“On the way to the Biesbosch we were still talking about the Roerdomp in the car”, says Hans. “Would we ever see him again, my buddy asked. Let’s hope so, was my answer. We drive into the first best polder road in the Muggenwaard and it happened: finally a Bittern. After seven years, finally success.”
Although spotting and photographing a Bittern is not the holy grail in bird photography, it remains something special. “If the bird stands upright in the reeds”, Hans says. “Then the bird almost completely disappears into the reeds because of its yellow-brown camouflage.”
The right to stand up is described by Vogelbescherming Nederland as: pole position. “The pole position of bitterns, imitating reeds by standing stiffly upright, is famous. Bitterns are mysterious birds that are difficult to see.”
“I’d love to get two more species in front of the lens.”
On the bucket list by Hans de Zwart, the bittern can finally be scrapped (after seven years). “But there is still something to be desired,” says Hans. “I would love to get the Penduline Tit and the Black Woodpecker in front of my lens.”
Hans will report his encounter with the bittern on observation.nl. “A platform where birdwatchers let you know where they have seen or heard a certain species. Sometimes with a photo. There are photos of bitterns on that platform, but a photo must meet my personal quality requirements. And my photos meet that.”
“In the Netherlands, the bittern is on the red list with about six hundred breeding pairs in 2020” can be read on the website of Vogelbescherming. The population bottomed out in the early 1990s when between 150 and 180 breeding pairs were counted. In the centuries prior to industrialization, our country had thousands of pairs.
