Found the proverbial needle - a bittern nest in a rice crop
By Matt Herring, Murray Wildlife
It’s with great joy that I share this news. Any niggling doubts I’ve had about the likelihood of widespread breeding in rice crops have evaporated. There it was – a glowing beacon of bittern reproduction: three chicks and two eggs. After so much effort, I was beginning to worry that someone would find that I’d ‘bittern the dust’ out in a rice paddock somewhere without having found a single nest!
Since last season, we’ve known that very significant numbers of the endangered Australasian Bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus) use rice crops in the NSW Riverina. Many things have pointed toward there being widespread breeding, but until now the Bitterns in Rice Project had been unable to find an active nest or other conclusive evidence of breeding in rice crops.
