Thrice Bittern once shy

There are days when delight presides over frustration, which is just as well otherwise my camera would spend a considerable time at the menders. This morning we went for a very early wander around Fishlake in the hope of seeing the reported Bittern. Sometimes it pays to be around at dawn, and sometimes it doesn't, today it did if for nothing else, to hear the mass sounds of Fishlake waking up. Large skeins of Canada and Greylag Geese were leaving noisily northwards, mixed flocks of Gulls coming and going from all directions, small flocks of Starlings leaving from the reeds, strangely silent apart from their wingbeats, the piglet-like squeals of Water Rails, the surprising and abrupt full song of Cettis Warblers;  all of these wild sounds blending in with the cacophony carrying from the local rookery. It was a good time to be stood in the middle of a reedbed. Especially good when a lone but familiar Goose flew north, the unmistakable Egyptian Goose, my first at Fishlake.
A very few minutes later the fabulous sight of a Bittern flying low, parallel to the canal, completed a memorable morning. We went back for breakfast after which I returned with a camera.

Of course the chances of seeing the Bittern twice were remote and I thought I would have a look over the main pond from the road first to see what waterfowl were visible. As I ducked through the branches, it saw me, I saw it and my second Bittern encounter of the day was over as it disappeared with indecent haste from the roadside ditch where it had been stood until my clumsy appearance. I think I may have cursed realising just how close I had got.
I settled down, hoping it would come back and sure enough, an hour or so later, I glimpsed its short flight from a clump of reeds to the middle of a large reedbed. No hope of a picture.
Something caused a bit of a stir and Lapwings seemed to take off in panic from everywhere, I cursed, not for the first time, for the lack of zoom on my lens as I couldn't fit the whole flock in one shot.

I took three shots across the flock (of which the above is one) and stitched them together at home to get a fairly accurate count of 323. I say fairly because there were a few out of shot lower down which I didn't count.
I'm not sure what made them jumpy, I guess it might have been the incoming presence of this character.. isn't she lovely?

(I still haven't got a photo of the Fishlake Bittern almost a month later!)