bittern(lat. Botaurus stellaris) is a bird of the heron family (Ardeidae). It belongs to the order Ciconiiformes. Currently, it is under the threat of extinction as a species on the territory of Moscow. Listed in the Red Book of the Moscow Region for 1998.
Description
Bittern from the back has black feathers with yellowish rims, the head is the same color. The belly is buffy with a brown transverse pattern. The tail is yellow-brown with a blackish pattern. In general, this coloration of the bittern is camouflage and helps the bird go unnoticed among the reed and reed stalks where it lives. Males are somewhat larger than females. The body weight of the male is about 1 kg, sometimes up to 1.9 kg, height up to 70 cm and above, females are somewhat smaller. The wing length for males is on average 34 cm, for females - 31 cm.
Spreading
The bittern breeds from Portugal east to Japan and Sakhalin. To the south, the range extends to Northwest Africa, Iran, Afghanistan and Korea. Another subspecies of the great bittern inhabits the southern parts of Africa. Bitterns winter in the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, northern India, Burma, and Southeast China. In some parts of Europe, bitterns do not fly away for the winter, but remain at the nesting site and live safely until spring. However, in harsh winters when all water bodies freeze, they die.
Lifestyle
The bittern arrives in Russia from wintering in early spring. Depending on the local climate, this may be March - May. Bitterns live in reservoirs with stagnant water or with a weak current, overgrown with reeds and reeds. The migration to the wintering grounds begins in late September - early October, however, some bitterns fly away when the first snow falls. Both spring and autumn bitterns make seasonal flights alone. The bittern molt occurs once a year from August to January. Thus, molting ends already in wintering. The bittern is active at dusk. Like many herons, the bittern stands motionless for a long time, watching for prey and grabbing it with a sharp lightning movement. During the day, she stands motionless in the thickets, usually on one leg, with her head drawn in and ruffled. It is very difficult to notice it at this moment: it looks more like a bunch of dry reed stalks. In danger, she freezes with her neck extended vertically and her head raised. In this case, it is even more difficult to notice it, as it becomes like a reed, the beak, stretched upwards, resembles the head of a reed. In direct danger, the bittern opens its beak wide and regurgitates swallowed food.
The bittern has a very loud cry, spreading for 2-3 kilometers in the area. It can be rendered as a low "trump" or "u-trump", reminiscent of a bull's roar. For this feature in Ukraine and Belarus, the bittern is called a bull. To some, the bittern's voice is reminiscent of the hum of the wind in a chimney. In one of Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories, the naturalist Stapleton attributed the sounds rumored to be made by the Hound of the Baskervilles to the calls of the bittern (as well as the rise of water and the sinking of silt in swamps). The bird makes such sounds with the help of the esophagus, which swells and acts as a resonator. Bittern usually calls in spring and in the first half of summer, usually at dusk and at night, as well as in the morning.
Food
The bittern feeds mainly on various fish: crucians, tenches, perches, small pikes. They also eat bitterns and frogs, newts, aquatic insects, worms, and tadpoles. Sometimes they also catch small mammals. Bittern feeds chicks mainly on tadpoles.
reproduction
Bitterns begin to nest even in the same area very unevenly. The nest is arranged on hummocks protruding from the water, always in dense thickets. The diameter of the nest is about 50 cm, the height is about 35 cm. There are 3-7 eggs in a clutch. The female lays eggs with an interval of 2-3 days, but begins to incubate immediately after laying the first egg. The eggs are incubated mainly by the female, only occasionally replaced by the male. After 25-26 days, the chicks hatch. 2-3 weeks after hatching, the chicks begin to leave the nest, and at the age of 2 months they already know how to fly. Shortly after the bittern chicks fledge, the family breaks up.
Appearance and behavior. A medium-sized heron of motley reddish-brown color; body length 70–80 cm, of which about half falls on the head and neck, weight 900–1,900 grams, wingspan 125–135 cm. Slightly smaller than the gray heron and looks much more dense and stocky, especially because of the habit of holding the head retracted into the shoulders, while the neck seems short and thick. The paws are also relatively short, but with very long and strong toes. It is extremely secretive, usually keeps in dense reed or willow thickets, extremely rarely catches the eye, most often it can be seen flying. The flight, like all herons, is light and unhurried. It disguises itself so skillfully in the thickets that it is impossible to notice the hidden bittern literally from two steps. In the “hiding position”, he stretches his head and neck vertically upwards and sways in time with the movements of the surrounding thickets. It is active around the clock, but is especially animated at dusk.
Description. The coloration is sandy-reddish, the entire plumage is dotted with numerous small dark streaks, which form longitudinal stripes on the underside of the neck. The legs are green, the beak is yellowish, the eyes are light brown or yellow. In flight, it is noticeable that the flight feathers are dark red with wide black stripes. Young birds are similar in color to adults, only duller. The chicks are covered with thick reddish down before the appearance of feathers.
Voice peculiar: in spring and early summer, males indicate their presence in the thickets with a low, booming two-syllable hoot: “ u-nummb". In calm weather, this sound is carried for several kilometers. More often it can be heard at night, but birds often scream during the day. A current male makes this sound by greatly inflating his neck. In flight, especially at night, it often emits a hoarse " how”, reminiscent of some signals.
Distribution, status. Widely distributed in Eurasia and Africa. In Russia it breeds from the western borders to Yakutia and Sakhalin. In the south, near the Black Sea and Azov coasts, it can winter. Due to specific habitat requirements, it occurs unevenly and is almost never numerous. Winters in the Mediterranean, Africa and southern Asia. Some birds, under favorable conditions, remain to winter on the coast of the Black and Caspian Seas.
Lifestyle. The most typical habitat of the species is extensive reed beds on large reservoirs - lakes, reservoirs and desalinated sea bays. It also settles on river oxbows and overgrown quarries overgrown with reeds and willow bushes; it does not require vast areas of open water. It settles in separate pairs, but sometimes two or three males lek relatively close to each other. There is evidence that several females and even several nests can be kept on the site of one male.
The nest is a heap of randomly piled dry vegetation (usually reed stalks) in the depths of thickets, reliably hiding it from all sides, but not covered by anything from above. The base of the nest is almost always in the water and is surrounded by water, most often quite deep. Clutch contains 4-6 eggs of light, brownish-olive color. The clutch is incubated mainly by the female. The chicks, as soon as they get a little stronger, get out of the nest in case of danger and who swim, who climb the stems, hide in the surrounding thickets, and when the danger passes, they return back.
A drawn-out, nasal "kau" is heard in the autumn in the starry heights. From this sharp unexpected cry, a slight fright creeps into the soul. It is in the darkness of the night that a marsh bird flies alone to the south - bittern.
Its mysterious nocturnal lifestyle and strange habits have given rise to many different interpretations among the people - superstitious people associate this bird with evil spirit. The night bull, or bittern, can frighten anyone at night with its cries. It looks like a small bird, but it hoots so ominously that it takes horror.
In one of the old legends of the northern peoples, it is said that the bittern itself does not fly to its homeland - they say that cranes bring it on their backs. And where they drop the bird to the ground, there it begins to scream at night, bringing misfortune to people.
A bad omen was heard by people in the mysterious cry of a bittern, and the bird itself was considered a symbol of ugliness. A bony, clumsy figure, or a motionless, clogged with life person was compared earlier with a bittern. Bittern in Yakut is bogorgono. This name is given by the cry, reminiscent of the roar of a bear. Another name is u-ogus, that is, a water bull. The Nanais call her Achaks.
It is not often possible to observe this bird in nature. She arrives in May, alone and always unnoticed. Her presence is revealed only by a loud hoot. These sounds are reminiscent of the roar of a bull or hooting into an empty barrel. Onomatopoeically, the spring cry of the bittern can be conveyed by the syllables “yp-yp-yp-plum, yp-yp-prumb, yp-prumb ...”. In Ukraine, her name is bull, or water bull.
In marshy places, along the outskirts of lakes, among the tussock bushes and thickets of reed grass, sedges and reeds, this cautious, unsociable one keeps. It is painted in the color of dense yellowish-brown thickets of grass and is hardly noticeable. Only sometimes a frightened bittern takes off, but usually, when danger appears, it prefers to hide. It freezes in a column, aiming its beak upwards and merging with the stems of dry grass, pretending to be either a knot or a small snag. The reddish-brown plumage of the bird merges with the background of the surrounding area.
Once, at the dawn of the evening, I disguised myself among the thick grass on the shore of a small lake. Ahead was a clean stretch, where they often sat down. It was getting dark. Quite nearby, a large bittern silently sank into the coastal sedge and froze. Deciding to look at her, I went to the landing site and, bending down, began to carefully peer into the thickets. Suddenly swipe stunned me on the forehead, and immediately the treacherous bittern flew out of the thickets with a noise and disappeared into the night sky. A bleeding deep wound on my forehead spoiled my whole hunt and then another, did not heal for a long time. It's good that the blow did not fall in the eye!
Bittern feeds on animal food, mainly fish. Eats frogs, destroys many mice, large water and ground insects. She makes a nest in reeds or in sedge, near the water, and lays 3-5 bluish eggs there. The age of the chicks is different, since incubation begins when the first egg is laid.
The temper of the bittern is very quarrelsome, vicious. She loves loneliness, and does not recognize the company of her own kind. Few can boast of her affection. Taken into captivity even as a chick, the bittern rarely becomes submissive and is difficult to tame. On occasion, the bittern always tries to strike with its faceted sharp beak.
Somehow, in a swamp, among dense thickets of reed grass, we found a bittern's nest, located on a spacious tussock and built from the stems of dry, hard reeds. The nest looked like an old broken basket. In it sat four already feathered chicks of different ages - bony, clumsy, with awkwardly large legs, they were very ugly. Seeing us, the chicks, as if on command, goggled their piercing, unblinking eyes and, pointing their beaks up, began to emit a low gurgling croak and hiss in unison. This defensive reaction meant - do not touch, otherwise it will be bad!
Still, we took one freak home, began to feed and water. But, despite all our efforts and tricks, the yellow-mouthed bastard was always shy and was irreconcilable. He never took food from his hands and constantly hid in the dark corners of the room. When a person approached, he invariably hunched over, goggled, raised his beak up and made such a grimace that it became unpleasant and creepy.
As the sun went down, the pudding came to life. If there was no extra movement or noise, he crawled out of his corner and, threateningly stretching his head forward and sticking out his beak - in a state of combat readiness - quietly walked around the room. Then he swarmed around the jar of food, swallowed fry, frogs, mice and all sorts of things. Everything we left him.
The bittern is a member of the heron family, the stork order. One of the most unusual features of the bird is the cry of a large bittern, which males emit during the mating season. It resembles the roar of a bull. But nowadays you can hear these amazing sounds of a big bittern less and less - birds leave their usual habitats due to economic activity person.
Description
The bittern is a large bird, its wingspan can reach 135 cm, its body length is 80 cm, and its weight is 2 kilograms. Males are slightly larger than their feathered companions. Their bodies are thick and large. On not too long neck has a small head. The beak is strong, pointed at the end. The legs are long and thin, and the tail, on the contrary, is very short, wedge-shaped.
The dense and stiff plumage of birds has a yellow-buff tint. The head, back and wings are colored yellowish and have longitudinal black stripes. And on the belly of an ocher color, brown stripes are located horizontally. On the head are a black cap and a mustache. The tail, like the whole body of the bird, is yellow-ocher, with dark streaks.
Young bitterns are more light shade compared to older relatives. The color scheme is a great camouflage. Birds live in marsh reeds. The color of the feathers helps them to blend in completely with the coastal vegetation, so it is very difficult to spot the birds. Photos of the great bittern demonstrate the ability of this bird to disguise itself.
Habitat
The habitat of these birds is very wide. They can lead both nomadic and sedentary lifestyles. The bittern is most common on the European continent - in Portugal and Spain, as well as in the southern regions of the Mediterranean. These birds can also be found on the shores North Sea, in Finland, Denmark, Sweden.
In addition to Europe, birds live on the African continent, in Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, as well as in Transbaikalia, the Yenisei River basin, Asia Minor, the southern regions of China and northern India. In the southern regions with a hot climate, large bitterns fly away in winter.
In Russia the largest number individuals lives on peat deposits of the Nizhny Novgorod and Kirov regions, as well as along rivers, lakes, marshes of Yakutia, Crimea.
The favorite habitat of birds is a damp area near natural stagnant reservoirs with fresh water, surrounded by dense thickets of shrubs and grass: reeds, cattail, reeds.
Great bittern in flight
Lifestyle and behavior
Great bitterns are migratory birds. They rush to the wintering place in the last week of September or early October. Sometimes birds postpone their flight to hot countries until the first snow falls. And they return to the nesting region in March - May.
Great bitterns are active during twilight. They can hunt for a long time, remaining motionless and waiting until the prey is in close proximity, after which they grab it with lightning speed.
During the daytime, birds prefer to stay in the thickets. Ruffled, they stand on one leg for a long time. And if there is an enemy nearby, great bitterns open their beaks wide and regurgitate the eaten food. Another way to protect them from enemies is to stretch their necks up, raise their heads and freeze so as to merge with the surrounding reed stalks.
Birds are known for their unusual call. Loud sounds, spreading around the area within a radius of several kilometers, are made by males during the mating season. Most often they do this at dusk, at night or in the early morning. The call of the swamp bittern, which begins with a short melody and continues with loud, like lowing sounds, is comparable to the strong hum of the wind or the roar of a bull. For this reason, the nickname “water bulls” has stuck to the birds. The esophagus helps to make such unusual sounds of a big bittern. Inflated, it works as a wonderful resonator.
The life expectancy of birds in their natural habitat usually does not exceed 13 years.
Reproduction and offspring
Large bitterns do not create noisy bird colonies. They live in pairs. Birds build their nests in shallow water, on bumps or right on the bottom. They have round shape and reach a diameter of half a meter. When chicks emerge from the eggs, the nests gradually sink into the water, so adults often have to complete their construction.
The female bitterns lay eggs correct form, clay grey. The female does most of the incubation. The partner can change it for a short time. Birds make no more than one clutch of eggs per year. The number of eggs in it varies from 3 to 8.
Interestingly, all the eggs are incubated by a large bittern with an interval of several days. And the chicks are also born in turn. One or more of the youngest individuals usually die.
The parent couple is engaged in feeding the offspring together. At the age of 2 - 3 weeks, the chicks get out of the nest, and by 8 weeks they try to fly. Birds quickly gain independence, and their families break up. Before a new nesting, bitterns live alone.
Food
Large bitterns are not picky about food. They feed mainly on fish, leeches, lizards, frogs, worms, and insects. If you manage to catch small mammals, such as water rats, and birds, or find eggs, then bitterns do not disdain them either. But how many eels are considered a favorite delicacy, with which a sharp beak helps the birds to cope.
Feathered birds prefer to get food in shallow water. At night, they tirelessly hunt, moving through the swamp or the shore of a reservoir. Birds take a few leisurely steps, after which they instantly grab their prey with their pointed beaks.
With the onset of cold weather, it becomes difficult for large bitterns to get food. The water begins to freeze over, making it difficult to hunt. The food is getting smaller. Therefore, most birds go south.
Big bittern caught a fish
Protection and conservation of large bitterns
The main reason for the constant decline in the population of these birds is human activity. Due to the massive drainage of swamps, spring grass burns, pollution of water bodies, places suitable for habitation and nesting of the big bittern are becoming less and less. This species is endangered in many regions of the world. In a number of states, it is classified as a rare and protected species.
In Europe, according to ornithologists, there are no more than 12,000 pairs of birds. Approximately the same number of birds is found in Russia. The bittern is listed in the Red Book on the territory of the Moscow Region. And on British Isles there are about 20 left. The further fate of this species depends on the preservation of its habitats.
Bitterns are close relatives of herons, with many similarities. Therefore, some scientists in the classification do not divide them into separate subfamilies.
Bittern females can be considered real heroines. They fiercely protect their own offspring even from large birds of prey, such as eagle owls or marsh harriers.
Birds prefer a solitary lifestyle. However, during the mating season of the bittern, you can see an unusual sight and hear the voice of a large bittern: attracting females, males perform group dances and make loud cries.
And the chicks are characterized by other, no less unusual sounds. They are similar to the gurgling of water, as if someone is blowing air into the water through a straw.
A drawn-out, nasal "kau" is heard in the autumn in the starry heights. From this sharp unexpected cry, a slight fright creeps into the soul. It is in the darkness of the night that a marsh bird flies alone to the south - bittern.
Its mysterious nocturnal lifestyle and strange habits have given rise to many different interpretations among the people - superstitious people associate this bird with evil spirits. The night bull, or bittern, can frighten anyone at night with its cries. It looks like a small bird, but it hoots so ominously that it takes horror.
In one of the old legends of the northern peoples, it is said that the bittern itself does not fly to its homeland - they say that cranes bring it on their backs. And where they drop the bird to the ground, there it begins to scream at night, bringing misfortune to people.
A bad omen was heard by people in the mysterious cry of a bittern, and the bird itself was considered a symbol of ugliness. A bony, clumsy figure, or a motionless, clogged with life person was compared earlier with a bittern. Bittern in Yakut is bogorgono. This name is given by the cry, reminiscent of the roar of a bear. Another name is u-ogus, that is, a water bull. The Nanais call her Achaks.
It is not often possible to observe this bird in nature. She arrives in May, alone and always unnoticed. Her presence is revealed only by a loud hoot. These sounds are reminiscent of the roar of a bull or hooting into an empty barrel. Onomatopoeically, the spring cry of the bittern can be conveyed by the syllables “yp-yp-yp-plum, yp-yp-prumb, yp-prumb ...”. In Ukraine, her name is bull, or water bull.
In swampy places, along the outskirts of lakes, among tussock bushes and thickets of reed grass, sedges and reeds, this cautious, unsociable river bird keeps. It is painted in the color of dense yellowish-brown thickets of grass and is hardly noticeable. Only sometimes a frightened bittern takes off, but usually, when danger appears, it prefers to hide. It freezes in a column, aiming its beak upwards and merging with the stems of dry grass, pretending to be either a knot or a small snag. The reddish-brown plumage of the bird merges with the background of the surrounding area.
Once, at the dawn of the evening, I disguised myself among the thick grass on the shore of a small lake. Ahead was a clean stretch, where ducks often sat down. It was getting dark. Quite nearby, a large bittern silently sank into the coastal sedge and froze. Deciding to look at her, I went to the landing site and, bending down, began to carefully peer into the thickets. Suddenly, a strong blow to the forehead stunned me, and immediately a treacherous bittern flew out of the thicket with a noise and disappeared into the night sky. A bleeding deep wound on my forehead spoiled my whole hunt and then another, did not heal for a long time. It's good that the blow did not fall in the eye!
Bittern feeds on animal food, mainly fish. Eats frogs, destroys many mice, large water and ground insects. She makes a nest in reeds or in sedge, near the water, and lays 3-5 bluish eggs there. The age of the chicks is different, since incubation begins when the first egg is laid.
The temper of the bittern is very quarrelsome, vicious. She loves loneliness, and does not recognize the company of her own kind. Few can boast of her affection. Taken into captivity even as a chick, the bittern rarely becomes submissive and is difficult to tame. On occasion, the bittern always tries to strike with its faceted sharp beak.
Somehow, in a swamp, among dense thickets of reed grass, we found a bittern's nest, located on a spacious tussock and built from the stems of dry, hard reeds. The nest looked like an old broken basket. In it sat four already feathered chicks of different ages - bony, clumsy, with ridiculously large legs, they were very ugly. Seeing us, the chicks, as if on command, goggled their piercing, unblinking eyes and, pointing their beaks up, began to emit a low gurgling croak and hiss in unison. This defensive reaction meant - do not touch, otherwise it will be bad!
Still, we took one freak home, began to feed and water. But, despite all our efforts and tricks, the yellow-mouthed bastard was always shy and was irreconcilable. He never took food from his hands and constantly hid in the dark corners of the room. When a person approached, he invariably hunched over, goggled, raised his beak up and made such a grimace that it became unpleasant and creepy.
As the sun went down, the pudding came to life. If there was no extra movement or noise, he crawled out of his corner and, threateningly stretching his head forward and sticking out his beak - in a state of combat readiness - quietly walked around the room. Then he swarmed around the jar of food, swallowed fry, frogs, mice and all sorts of things. Everything we left him.
In the autumn, when the chick grew up and became a completely adult bird, he caught his eye less and less and became completely sad. Still not friendlier, the young bittern began to look at us, declaring a uniform hunger strike. We began to fear that her protest might end sadly, and decided to let the bird go. In the evening, our pet was taken out into the wild - he shook out his red clothes, flapped his wings and, blowing our faces in the breeze, disappeared into the darkness. A farewell "kau" sounded in the night sky.
In the meadows of the Amur region lives another bittern- Amur wolf. The same bony, awkward, only smaller in size and darker plumage.