Fran, I want to thank you publicly for that report because I think it's such a fine example of doing background research to follow up an observation. And I compliment you particularly on using the old Bent's Life Histories, which I treasure; I've found too many cases recently, in quite different fields, of people having very limited, distorted perceptions of situations or very limited knowledge because they only know, and rely on, the most recent literature and the newest "hot" ideas. We're a society that celebrates the new, denigrates or ignores the old. That attitude doesn't serve us well. Thanks again.

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503
______________________________________
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