The Australasian Bittern is another globally endangered bird mainly as a result of widespread wetland drainage and loss of its wetlands habitat, predation and disturbance with numbers down as low as 1,000 in New Zealand. They are a shy bird - heard more than they are seen - with the male having a booming call mostly in the evenings from mid-winter to late summer to advertise territory and attract a female. If disturbed, they turn their bills skyward and freeze, and are very well camouflaged among the densely vegetated wetland reeds and thickets in shallow standing water.
Bitterns avoid the sea coast. Their diet is solely eels, fish, frogs and tadpoles, insects, worms, spiders, lizards, mice, rats and even birds. The female bird alone seems to build the nest on a platform of raised ... read morereeds above water level, incubates the the three to six olive brown eggs, and cares for the young feeding them regurgitated food. The chicks that survive, fledge in about seven weeks and disperse soon after. Bitterns are solitary hunters who roost alone, and the males are extremely aggressive towards one another.
In the late nineteenth century their feathers were sought after as trout flies.
RosinaBloom
Bitterns avoid the sea coast. Their diet is solely eels, fish, frogs and tadpoles, insects, worms, spiders, lizards, mice, rats and even birds. The female bird alone seems to build the nest on a platform of raised ... read more