Birdwatcher Claims New Garden Record With 'Probable Bittern' That Neighbors Say Was a Heron

Suburban birder Kenneth Record has added a Eurasian bittern to his garden bird list on the strength of a two-second sighting that three neighbors have independently described as 'a grey heron, which comes every Tuesday and stands on his lawn looking bored.' Record, whose garden list stands at 67 species and is the highest in the street, reported the bittern at 7:23 AM on Saturday morning. 'I saw it from the bedroom window,' he said. 'Brown. Stocky. Standing in the reeds by the pond. Clearly a bittern. Unmistakable.' 'Kenneth doesn't have reeds by his pond,' said neighbor Margaret Heron. 'He has three ornamental grasses and a dead lavender bush. What he saw was the heron. The heron that comes every single week. The heron that ate all his goldfish in 2023. He knows the heron. We all know the heron.' Record rejected the identification. 'The heron is taller and greyer,' he said. 'This bird was shorter, browner, and had what I would describe as a bittern-like posture — hunched and secretive. Herons don't hunch. This bird hunched.' Dr. Wren Binocular, consulted on the matter, noted that bitterns are almost exclusively found in extensive reedbeds and are rarely observed in suburban gardens. 'A bittern in a garden in Westfield would be an extraordinary record,' she said. 'Extraordinary records require extraordinary evidence. A two-second view from a bedroom window does not constitute extraordinary evidence. It constitutes a two-second view from a bedroom window.' Record has maintained the entry on his list, marked with the notation 'probable.' He has also installed a trail camera facing the pond. The only footage so far shows the grey heron, arriving on Tuesday as usual, standing on the lawn, and looking bored.