{"id":559,"date":"2017-01-08T20:00:01","date_gmt":"2017-01-08T20:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/?p=559"},"modified":"2017-01-12T17:01:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T17:01:46","slug":"blooming-bitterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/?p=559","title":{"rendered":"Blooming bitterns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today we went searching for bitterns. We persuaded the girls to go along with this by telling them about the booming noise that bitterns make during mating season \u2013 booming bitterns. J understood this as blooming bitterns.<\/p>\n<p>Our first stop was Foxcote reservoir near Buckingham. No luck there \u2013 it was far too misty. However, the friendly people from the Wildlife Trust at Foxcote advised us that they would be at Calvert Jubilee a few miles away later in the day, and we should try there. The girls seemed game, so we hung around in Buckingham for a bit, before driving to Calvert. When we got there, the Wildlife Trust had a telescope trained on a bittern in the bushes! After a bit it strolled around for a while, and we got a good look. Here it is!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lichen.jpg\"><br \/>\n<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/bittern.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-561\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/bittern.jpg\" alt=\"bittern\" width=\"153\" height=\"131\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Got it? There was also a marsh tit flitting about near the bird hide.<\/p>\n<p>We walked around the reserve for a while. Last chance to do this in peace as HS2 is to be built through it soon, a great pity.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/bittern.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-560\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lichen-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"lichen\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lichen-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lichen.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we went searching for bitterns. We persuaded the girls to go along with this by telling them about the booming noise that bitterns make during mating season \u2013 booming bitterns. J understood this as blooming bitterns. Our first stop was Foxcote reservoir near Buckingham. No luck there \u2013 it was far too misty. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions\/564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}