Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 07:46:48 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Re: bittern feeding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/28/2002 9:28:22 AM Eastern Standard Time, grackling@WORLDNET.ATT.NET writes: > > From your description I am not exactly sure where you saw the > biitern. > I assume it was in the large impoundment among the smartweed mats. If so > the water there is not very deep and although you can't see it from the > dike > there is usually a thick mat of submerged aquatic vegetation throughout > that > whole area, so I suspect your bittern was walking on this mat and using its > wings to help maintain its position. > Paul, The bird was in a clump of water plants (sorry, I don't know my botany better), which were sort of reddish in color (because of the changing seasons?), about 2/3 of the way beyond the intersection of the dikes, in the large impoundment on the left. The clump it was first in was small, perhaps 15-20 feet in diameter. The larger clump it swam/walked to was across the open channel which was about 15- feet across, and the larger clump was the same plant as the first clump and was more extensive. The best illustration I could find which resembled what I saw was in Ken Kaufmann's new field guide. There is a photo of a Virginia Rail swimming which looks just like the bittern, except the bittern was swimming left and not right. It held its wings at its side and did not use them for any help in locomotion It could conceivably have been walking along the bottom, or swimming, but either way it was fascinating to watch! Thanks for your input, Rick ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================