American Bittern 261 



Unlike the solitary little green cousin, the black- 

 crowned heron delights in company, and a 

 hundred noisy pairs may choose to nest in some 

 favourite spot. How they squawk over their 

 petty quarrels! Wilson likened the noise to 

 that of *' two or three hundred Indians choking 

 one another.'' 



Only when they have yoimg fledglings to feed 

 do these herons hunt for food in broad day- 

 light. But as the light fades they become in- 

 creasingly active and noisy; even after it is 

 pitch dark, when the fishermen go eeling, you 

 may hear them qtcawking continually as they 

 fly up and down the creek. Big, pearly-gray 

 birds (they stand fully two feet high) with 

 black-crowned heads, from which their long, 

 narrow, white wedding feathers fall over the 

 black top of the back, the night herons so 

 harmonise with the twilight as to seem a part 

 of it. 



AMERICAN BITTERN 



Called also: Stake-driver; Poke; Freckled 

 Heron; Booming Bittern; Indian Hen 



Even if you have never seen this shy hermit of 

 large swamps and marshy meadows you must 

 know him by his remarkable "barbaric yawp." 

 Not a muscle does this brown and blackish and 



