American Bittern

While Tammy and I were on Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park we were lucky enough to notice an American Bittern standing in the tall grass just next to the boardwalk. An American Bittern likes to sit verrrry still. This behavior, combined with its striped color pattern, gives it a very effective disguise in tall grass and reeds. It is very easy to walk right past this species and never notice it.

Like most parks that are easily accessed by lots of people, the majority of the wildlife goes unnoticed by the masses. This was the case on Anhinga Trail. Everyone "oooohed" and "ahhhed" over the large birds and the alligators that were impossible not to see. But hardly anyone noticed the small song birds, or this American Bittern. Only when someone stops to take photos, or obviously pay attention to some creature, will others stop to see what the fuss is all about. This phenomenon is the same as the traffic jams that I described in Yellowstone National Park.

Here are a couple photos of the American Bittern. Maybe some of the folks who saw me perched on the edge of the boardwalk taking pictures of this bird will remember that they completely missed this animal's presence. And then maybe they will wonder just how many other things they are missing. If you don't know something is there, then it is probable that you are not thinking about conserving it.

American Bittern

My previous post suggested that I had two or three most posts from the last field trip of the 2007 ABA Conference in Lafayette. I decided tonight that it would be only one more post. This one.

As the title of this post announces, here are a couple pictures of an American Bittern. The first is with minimal zoom and no cropping to give you an idea of how this species hides in tall grass. The vertical stripes, brown coloration and bill-pointed-to-the-sky stance help it blend in quite nicely. It can look just like one of the reeds or part of the grass it is standing within.

The second picture is of a different bird than the first (another picture taken through a tinted van window). This bird was just standing in a marshy ditch next to the road. Oddly, the bird only knows one way to blend into its surroundings, even if those surroundings are not a good fit for its natural camouflage. I can just imagine this bird standing there, perfectly still, staring at our stopped van thinking "I am invisible! I am invisible! The big white van stopped for some other reason because I am invisible!".