The call of the bunyip echoes from Tasmania’s ancient past. A low-pitched boom resonates on balmy, summer nights from wetlands fringed with reeds.
Unsettling and unnerving, it’s no wonder that Aboriginal peoples across the country feared the sound, believing it evoked malign and sinister spirits.
But these days the bunyip has been unmasked. It’s now accepted the bunyip of Aboriginal folklore is the bittern, a nocturnal member of the heron family that skulks in marshes.
The endangered bittern has been in the news these past weeks because of its discovery in a remote area of Tasmania. A news item on both the ABC nationally and in the Mercury revealed the bunyip had been found in the Lagoon of Islands on Tasmania’s Central Plateau, causing great excitement among both professional ornithologists and casual birdwatchers alike.
I’ve had my own bittern experience – or should I say near bittern experience – closer to home, among the reedbeds of the Egg Islands in the Huon River at Franklin.
When local bird-watchers told me the booming far-carrying call could be heard some nights from the Franklin Tavern, I took up station in the hotel’s patio – a pint of Cascade pale ale in hand to ward off evil spirits.
Two hours of steady bittern listening, and not so steady drinking, drew a blank and I went off to contemplate the one that got away. But I was soon back, seizing the opportunity to go on a boat ride around the Egg Islands and associated reedy lagoons to promote the Living Boat Trust at Franklin. Again, the elusive bittern eluded me.
It’s not surprising bitterns are hard to find. They have plumage designed to blend in with the reedbeds in which they make their home. If threatened, instead of flying away they merely extend their long necks to mimic the yellow-brown colour and upright shape of the surrounding reeds.
Bittern expert Geoff Shannon told the Mercury that across the whole country there were fewer than 1000 of the species. Bitterns were last recorded in the Lagoon of Islands in the 1980s and numbers in Tasmania were believed to be down to about 100 birds.
The wetland environment – long considered marginal with no economic value – is under severe threat in Australia with some surveys suggesting up to 50 per cent of this habitat has been lost in the past 200 years.
Wetlands have been drained under reclamation schemes, creating farmland and housing development, over much of Australia.
The bittern hangs in, however, as I found to my surprise a little after the bittern hunt at Franklin.
I was watching a long-distance rowing event from Granton to New Norfolk on the Derwent in which my son was participating when out of the blue a bittern appeared. As the starter’s gun sounded at Murphys Flats, the bittern flew low across the reedbeds on leisurely, languid flight.