42
Concord Mass.
Spring and early Summer
1913

Nuptial plumes of Bittern.

(Bittern) On May 8 [May 8, 1913] I had an exceptionally favorable opportunity
for seeing a Bittern display his nuptial plumes. Returning from a trip
to Cambridge I had walked down through the woods to our 
stone boat house when Gilbert, who was awaiting me on the canal 
landing there, called my attention to the bird. He was then some 
30 yards away standing erect & motionless among the grass evidently 
somewhat disturbed by my approach and with his white plumes concealed 
although Gilbert had been seeing these shortly before. Within two yards of 
him stood a decidedly smaller and slenderer-looking Bittern, no doubt 
a female and his mate. After regarding us intently, through a thin screen of 
intervening foliage for several minutes, during which they preserved their 
erect, stake-like attitudes, both birds crouched and stole away a few 
yards unseen through the grass reappearing, still close together, in an 
almost perfectly open space beyond which we had a good view of them. 
Shortly after this the nuptial plumes of the male were again exposed and very 
conspicuously, as well as continuously, displayed for at least ten minutes during 
which the bird walked slowly about, every now and [then] stopping to jump. They 
looked as white as driven snow and of about the size and shape of the 
wings of a Quail or a Meadow Lark. The female meanwhile remained standing 
in nearly the same place apparently paying little or no attention to her 
mate. Besides pumping half a dozen times he went through the 
preliminary snapping & gulping at least thrice as often without 
following it by the usual loud, "booming" notes. This I cannot 
remember ever witnessing before. Nor have I ever before 
seen the plumes exhibited by the male while pumping or when 
accompanied by a female. This account of the observation made
on May 8 [May 8, 1913] has just been written (at Glendale) from memory, on
July 22 [July 22, 1913]. There is probably a fresher & better description of it 
in journal sheets written at the time & now in Cambridge.