The Specialist Loses Control SOS 



"Maybe so," he replied. "But that kind of food is either a 

 foot under snow or four inches under ice. They have to eat 

 something." 



"So does the bittern," I said. "But you say that it refuses to 

 feed?" 



"Seems that way," he replied. "It just stalks around with- 

 out paying any attention to the tray or the other birds. I 

 think it's the bittern that was around the float all summer— 

 the one that kept fat on tadpoles. I guess it's still thinking 

 about tadpoles and wants nothing else. I never saw a skin- 

 nier bird. It's a goner if the weather stays this way." 



I went out on the float to look for the bittern. I found it 

 on shore near the projecting top of a clump of weeds. It 

 glared at me as if denying my right to intrude, stood a few 

 feet away, and then moved away with shoulder feathers 

 slightly raised and big feet making conspicuous tracks where 

 the snow was soft. If the bird was hungry its steady gait did 

 not indicate any weakness or inability to withstand such 

 conditions. 



I remembered the first bittern I had seen. While paddling 

 one day my attention had been attracted to the cattails along 

 the bank of the marsh. Some break in the continuitv of line, 

 a slight irregularity in the pattern, told me that a foreign ob- 

 ject was there. What happened when I stopped the canoe 

 could be compared to the dissolve in a change of movie 

 scene. As I looked at the spot, the cattails lost form and were 

 replaced by lines and patterns which were not those of the 

 marsh but of a bird— a chicken-size stocky brown bird, the 

 breast of which was striped or streaked vertically in a way 

 which reminded me of the shirt of an English soccer player. 

 For the moment the long and sharp bill pointed directly up- 

 ward. The legs were strong and yellowish-green and the eyes 

 yellow. The neck was outstretched. 



I have learned much about the bittern since that first 

 meeting. I found that it was a resident of many of the marshy 



