Bittern

For years the little brook winding down Chickadee Valley was just a creek. An enterprising nabor dammed it and surrounding land became a small marsh. Rails Ducks and Grebes appeared and one April morning a BITTERN'S muted thunder awoke tiny echoes from the hills.

An extraordinary phase of courting is a display of white back tufts, resembling an extra pair of wings when the bird is seen head on. With foreshortened head and crouching body, the Bittern assumes a Grouse outline and meets a rival in midair with a great flurry of feathers, wings, legs and rapier bill. It seems as if the antagonists must destroy each other yet the fierce encounters result harmlessly — Knights jousting with wooden lances.

They are solitary (unlike Herons) and evenly distributed thruout their range. I have never seen more than a pair in one locality altho in the west they are said to nest in small companies.

I have often surprised this aquatic recluse, with head on shoulders, meditatively posed upon one foot in the reeds. Sometimes they scrambled awkwardly awing but more often a sudden shooting upward of the neck and compression of the body are used to escape observation. Usually the change of position was made slowly but twice it was executed so swiftly that my eve could not follow. In part of a second the sleepy philosopher was transformed into a motionless reed! One name — "Plum-puddin' " — describes their booming call as closely as words can.