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.