_____

From: Fran Wood [mailto:fbwood2002 at msn.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2005 5:01 PM
To: 'tweeters at u.washington.edu'
Subject: Nisqually American Bittern with WHITE!



Hello Tweeters,

On Friday (5/13) Bunny and I led a Seattle Audubon trip to
Nisqually NWR. About 3 PM we were returning from the McAllister Creek
overlook toward the Visitor Center with co-trippers John Lee, Don Roos and
Susan Yates when we saw an American Bittern next to some cattails on the
north side of the trail. We got it in the bins and scope and were amazed to
see a brilliant pair of white feathered epaulettes extended from the bird's
shoulders as viewed from the back. I wondered if this was some sort of
albinistic variant, and could find no mention of this extraordinary plumage
variation in any of the field guides I was dragging along. As we all know,
the American Bittern is one of the best camouflaged birds of the marsh and
can disappear at a distance of a few feet.but not with those white
shoulders!

Saturday John called to say he had found one mention of the
species showing a showy ruff of white feathers "when courting his mate or
threatening a rival" in Sidney Bahrt's and Hope Jex's 1974 "The Wilderness
of Birds". I searched and found a one phraser in Paul Ehrlich et al.'s "The
Birder's Handbook" (1988) under American Bittern Displays: "..also expands
white patches on back." Finally I came upon the key reference which I'm
sure all readers of this will remember: William Brewster's description of
the American Bittern's nuptial display in his ten page paper on this topic
in The Auk in 1911!

Brewster is quoted in Bent's 1926 "Life Histories of North
American Marsh Birds", writing "The white first appears at or very near the
shoulders of the folded wings and then expands, sometimes rather quickly
(never abruptly, however) but oftener very slowly until, spreading
simultaneously from both sides, it forms two ruffs apparently almost if not
quite equal in length and breadth to the hands of a large man but in shape
more nearly resembling the wings of a grouse or quail held with the tips
pointing sometimes nearly straight upward, sometimes more or less backward,
also." Brewster continues with much more detail re. this fantastic and
unexpected display.

We were amazed to stumble upon this Bittern show that is not
well advertised in the literature, not even in Terres' "Encyclopedia of
North American Birds". There's always something new for observant birders.
Watch for the Bittern at Nisqually with the white epaulettes!


Good birding
(and birding research) for all,


Fran Wood (male) and Bunny