Eurasian bittern (Great bittern) : Buckinghamshire : 19 Nov 2018

Results from my attempts at wildlife photography over the years have been overwhelmingly disappointing. But, having in recent months taken a more serious interest in birdwatching, and acquiring a mid-range spotting scope and binoculars, I've lately been hugely enjoying filming some of the local wildlife, by using a smartphone attached to the scope via an adapter.

Sometimes, a byproduct of this is a half-decent frame grab from the video file. As here, when this bittern kindly decided to show itself for a few minutes at a local reserve recently.

The resulting photo quality is not great - I was only shooting 1080p video rather than 4K, due to storage space limitations on my phone - but overall I'm quite happy with the result.

And, of course, just seeing this bird was an amazing experience in itself (as a novice birder, this was the first time I'd seen a bittern, other than as a faraway flying speck ) - I think I hardly dared breathe for the whole time it was on view!

Nice shot.