Concord, Mass.
1910.
April 21
[April 21, 1910]

Bitterns.

  Sunny but hazy; forenoon calm; fresh E. [East] wind in afternoon.
  Spent almost entire day watching Bitterns. There
were two males pumping in Great Meadow sometimes
within 50 yards of one another, sometimes 200 to 300
yards apart. Whenever they approached one another within
100 yards they acted like the two seen on the 17th
& 18th crawling about over the meadow and showing the
white ruffs more or less conspicuously. One appeared
to have yellowish ruffs, the other large pure white ones.
When the latter bird was facing away from me the
ruffs looked exactly like a pair of white wings
shaped much like those of a Domestic Pigeon but
smaller (perhaps two-thirds as large). They seemed
to lie nearly flat on the back with
the tips pointing backward thus,
[diagram]