{"id":14077,"date":"2013-04-06T09:26:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T15:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=14077"},"modified":"2013-04-06T09:48:20","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T15:48:20","slug":"american-bittern-in-habitat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/06\/american-bittern-in-habitat\/","title":{"rendered":"American Bittern In Habitat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Bittern may\u00a0be the most elusive avian subject I’ve ever photographed.\u00a0 They’re solitary, cryptically colored and their preferred habitat is wetlands with tall, emergent vegetation.\u00a0 And they’re extremely secretive by nature.\u00a0 So much so that very little is known about their biology, which is too bad because perhaps if we understood them better we could\u00a0more effectively\u00a0manage their seriously\u00a0declining populations.<\/p>\n

They’re an interesting species for a variety of reasons.\u00a0 For example, they have a resounding, low-frequency call that enables them to communicate with each other through the visually and acoustically restricting tall, thick vegetation that they prefer (low sound frequencies penetrate these barriers best).\u00a0 Their unique call is the reason for one of their common names, “thunder-pumper”.<\/p>\n

When alarmed they typically go into what is referred to as the “bittern stance” where they stretch their body vertically with their bill pointed upward, press their feathers flat against the body and then sway with the breeze just like the surrounding vegetation.\u00a0 This behavior, when combined with their cryptic coloration, can make them virtually impossible to spot.\u00a0 Pretty neat.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a01\/1000, f\/7.1, ISO 200, 100-400 @ 400mm, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In 7 years of photographing\u00a0birds, often in wetland habitats preferred by bitterns, this was the best opportunity I’ve ever had with the species.\u00a0 I found this bittern at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.\u00a0 As is typical it was fairly deeply buried in vegetation but at least it was close and I liked the light.\u00a0 With me so close (in my pickup) it assumed the “bill pointed up” pose.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"american<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/500, f\/7.1, ISO 200, 100-400 @ 400mm, natural light<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Then it turned around and walked, ever so slowly, back to the shore of the canal and disappeared in the reeds and grasses.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – My blog has been down all morning, at least\u00a0in part\u00a0due to the incompetency of Network Solutions (yes, I’m extremely frustrated).\u00a0 I apologize for the inconvenience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Bittern may be the most elusive avian subject I’ve ever photographed. They’re solitary, cryptically colored and their preferred habitat is wetlands with tall, emergent vegetation. And they’re extremely secretive by nature. So much so that very little is known about their biology, which is too bad because perhaps if we understood them better we could more effectively manage their seriously declining populations.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1367,338,334],"tags":[1368,49,1371,1369,1344,1370,1372,1373],"class_list":["post-14077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-bitterns","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","tag-american-bittern","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-bittern-stance","tag-botaurus-lentiginosus","tag-cryptic-coloration","tag-low-frequency-call","tag-network-solutions","tag-thunder-pumper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3F3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}