| Eurasian Bittern | |
|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Pelecaniformes |
| Family: | Ardeidae |
| Genus: | Botaurus |
| Species: | B. stellaris |
| Binomial name | |
| Botaurus stellaris (Linnaeus, 1758) |
|
The Eurasian Bittern or Great Bittern (Botaurus stellaris) is a wading bird of the heron family Ardeidae. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.
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The Latin for bittern, Botaurus, also refers to the bull. The other part of its scientific name, stellata is the Latin for starry, in reference to its plumage. Its folk names include "barrel-maker", "bog-bull", "bog hen", "bog-trotter" and "mire drum", mainly with reference to its voice or habitat. "Butterbump" derives from Norfolk and refers to its high fat content when eaten as food.
Bitterns are thickset herons with bright, pale, buffy-brown plumage covered with dark streaks and bars, similar in appearance to the to the American Bittern, Botaurus lentiginosa. The Eurasian or Great Bittern is 69–81 cm (27–32 in) in length, with a 100–130 cm (39–51 in) wingspan and a body mass of 0.87–1.94 kg (1.9–4.3 lb).[2] Their most distinctive feature is the males booming call in spring.
Distribution in Europe as a whole is estimated at 20-44,000 males.[3] It usually inhabits Phragmites reedbeds. The population is declining in much of its temperate European and Asian range. It is resident in the milder west and south, but migrates south from areas where the water freezes in winter. In the UK, the main areas are Lancashire and East Anglia with an estimated 44 breeding pairs. In Ireland it died out as a breeding species in the mid-19th century, but in 2011 a single bird was spotted in County Wexford.[4]
Besides the Eurasian race, Botaurus s. stellaris, another race, Botaurus s. capensis exists in southern Africa,[5] which occurs sparingly in marshes of the east coast, the Okavango Delta and the upland foothills of the Drakensberg. The southern race suffered catastrophic decline during the 20th century due to wetland degradation, and unlike the northern race it is of highest conservation concern.[6]
Usually solitary, it walks stealthily as it forages. If it senses that it has been seen, it becomes motionless, with its bill pointed upward, causing it to blend into the reeds. It is most active at dawn and dusk.
Males are polygamous with each mating with up to five females. The nest is built in the previous year's standing reeds and consists of a platform some 30 cm across. Four or five eggs are laid in late March and April and incubated by the female bird. After hatching, the chicks spend about two weeks in the nest and then disperse amongst the reeds.
Bitterns feed on fish, eels, amphibians and invertebrates, hunting along the reed margins in shallow water.
The mating call of the male is a deep fog-horn or bull-like boom, easily audible from a distance of two miles on a calm night. Surveys of Eurasian Bitterns are carried out by noting the number of distinct male booms in a given area.
Eurasian Bittern is proposed as a rational explanation behind the mythical creature drekavac in short story Brave Mita and drekavac from the pond by Branko Ćopić.[7]
The species is mentioned in George Crabbe's 1810 narrative poem The Borough, to emphasise the ostracised, solitary life of the poem's villain, Peter Grimes:
"And the loud Bittern from the bull-rush home
Gave from the Salt-ditch side the bellowing boom:"
Thomas McDonagh the Irish poet executed for his part in the Easter Rising translated a famous Gaelic poem "The Yellow Bittern". His friend and fellow poet Francis Ledwidge wrote a celebrated "Lament for Thomas McDonagh" with the opening line He shall not hear the bittern cry.