A century ago the bittern
was making what seemed like a last stand in Norfolk, having
previously bred in quite a large area of East Anglia, wherever there were suitable
reed bedded marshes. After 1868 it only bred once during the nineteenth century. It
was given up as lost. Then in 1911, a Miss E.L. Turner discovered a pair in the
Norfolk Broads once more. Since then, as a result of conservation management of
reed beds, the bittern has gradually increased; today it breeds in Suffolk and
Cambridge as well as Norfolk.