Can you see me now?…by Brad Marks

Greetings from the southwest! Linda and I made it to Arizona yesterday and as expected, today was a birding extravaganza going +14 for the year including +3 lifers. (that puts me only 27 birds from being in the top 100 in the US yeah!!). Climbing foothills has pretty much wiped me out (with a tenderized ankle), so Brad is going to close out the month with an adventure in the complete opposite direction.

Take it away Brad…

As many of our readers know by now, Intrigued HQ sent Jan and I to review the European operations in January.  We were able to spend many days with Allyson and check out many of the locations she had been editing from.  Once we were back in the States, Jan was going through her e-mail backlog and found a deal from a hotel in South Carolina we’ve used before.  After a few minutes checking, their claim proved the special deal was legit.  Jan then remembered that she also had airline miles to use, so we booked a quick trip to Hilton Head Island, non-stop from our local airport (expense report pending).  This time we would take the big glass along and not rely on our smartphones for everything.  While that usually means our shoulders get a workout, we get far more usable photos in the end.  For those of our readers that choose to fly with their big glass, please leave comments on how you protect/package it for flights, especially if you have to use regional jets like Jan and I do.

As the departure date approached, the temps in Central Illinois began to flirt with 0 degrees Fahrenheit, or -18C for our international readers.  Central Illinois can get rather cold during February.  I know, I know, you folks in Wisconsin and Minnesota always say we know nothing about cold.  Anything below zero degrees Fahrenheit is cold.  Period.  Jan and I have chosen to escape to warmer parts of the country for a week (maybe longer next year if the Intrigued accountants will approve it) during February, just to thaw things out a little bit.  Plus, our camera batteries last longer when the temps are above freezing, so do our fingers.  Jan and I weren’t very worried about the temps as long as Hilton Head Island held up its end of the bargain and kept true to the differential we have come to expect, meaning 30-40 degrees warmer than Illinois in February.  Well, Hilton Head Island held up its end of the bargain . . . mostly.  Temps when Jan and I landed were near 40F, a tad chillier than we normally experience, but still 40 degrees warmer than Illinois.  Not to worry, by the end of our stay, regular daytime temps at Hilton Head were approaching the mid 60’s. 

For our first birding day on this trip, we decided to go a bit further south in hopes of catching just 5 more degrees, maybe even into the upper 40’s.  Once the rental car was loaded with cameras, Jan and I drove to Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) to see what we could see. 

Laurel Hill Wildlife Drive (LHWD), a small part of SNWR, is a 4.5-mile “road” that meanders (their word from the brochure) through a small portion of the refuge’s freshwater impound system.  Essentially, visitors drive in one direction on causeways and two-track roads through the marshlands (my words).  Thankfully, temps did end up being about 5 degrees warmer, but that was all. 

At our first repeat stop on LHWD from the prior year, about 0.5 miles in, there is a small pull-out area.  Naturally, I parked the rental car (still trying to figure out how to expense the car on this trip) and started walking the grassy areas near the water.  Remember when I said the temps were only in the 40’s?  There was also a bit of wind that day making it hard to hold the camera still.  That’s a good and bad thing.  Bad because we were cold.  It was certainly an experience to try to operate the camera controls with my gloves on.  Good because alligators are also cold and very (to the third power, as in “very very very”) slow.  Usually when the temps are this cold, they are busy sunning themselves (though it was cloudy and windy) and they really don’t want to waste precious heat energy chasing down photographers.  After a few (hundred) clicks of the cameras for the few birds we could see, remember it was a bit breezy, Jan and I huddled up making a plan for our next stop.  Really, we just wanted to go sit in the warm car for a few minutes.  When all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, a clump of reeds near us moved. 

These clumps are made for movin’
And that’s just what they did
One click of the jump, gonna reveal all to you (note, Brad is NOT responsible for this lame Sinatra reference)

At first, I was unable to locate the clump with direct vision, but then it moved again.  In actuality, it wasn’t a clump of reeds, well, it sort of was.  It was a bird, keeping below most of the wind on the edge of the water and reeds.

The bird is an American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus), a +1 for Jan and I.  While not a new bird to Wildlife Intrigued, it certainly was a new one for us.  Brian reported on the American Bittern in prior posts (here and here) from other locations.

For the most part of our viewing experience, the Bittern didn’t move, well, at least not very quickly.  When it did move, it chose to move very, very, very slowly; sort of like an alligator does in February.  Even with two Nikon 200-500mm lenses pointed in its general direction, the Bittern was not to be hurried.

Normally, the American Bittern is more often heard than seen.  If it was making any noise the day we were there, Merlin couldn’t hear it over the wind.  I won’t say it was dangerous wind conditions, but Jan was letting me block the wind for her to have a chance of holding her camera steady.  I had my lens on Active VR to help compensate for getting pushed around quite a bit.

This Bittern was in its non-breeding range along the South Carolina coast (right next to Georgia), but it was in its favorite type of  habitat: a freshwater marsh with tall vegetation.  This partially explains why it is usually heard and not seen, exactly opposite of what the old guy next door said about the neighborhood kids when I was growing up.

The Bittern was mostly protected from the wind being in the water several feet below us, but an occasional eddy of wind would ruffle its feathers.

We were fortunate to have photos of it out in the open, so to speak, as well as in camouflage mode.  I can see where the casual observer would completely miss it, even though it was not completely covered in the reeds.  Jan and I didn’t observe the reed imitation behavior often seen when a Bittern is hunting and trying to blend in with the surroundings.  By stretching its neck nearly straight up, the Bittern is either trying to imitate the reeds blowing in the wind as camouflage, or it’s trying to get a better look at prey in the immediate area.

American Bittern eat a variety of food including:  insects, amphibians, reptiles, fish, crustaceans and sometimes small mammals.  Bitterns usually forage in dim light at the fringe of water and vegetation.

A female American Bittern gathers the nest material and builds the nest.  According to All About Birds, the nest is usually located in a thick stand of cattails, or similar plants, that grow out of shallow water.  Bitterns will sometimes, but rarely, build nests on dry ground in areas surrounded by tall grasses.  The female also incubates the eggs, raises and feeds the chicks with no observed help from the male at all.   She will incubate 2-7 eggs for up to four weeks.  Chicks depend on mom for about two more weeks before starting to fend for themselves.  The American Bittern is currently of Low conservation concern, but their numbers have been declining in the past 50 years in some regions of the U.S. and Canada, with the loss of marshlands.  The American Bittern can live around 8 years in the wild.

By the time our cameras had run through a couple of hundred photos (sure glad we weren’t shooting film) the Bittern had worked itself back into the reeds where it disappeared from view.  Our whole photographic encounter lasted about two minutes.  In that time the Bittern moved a total of 10-15 feet. I think it felt like longer because of the wind, and cold, rushing by us.  Back into the rental car to turn on the heated seats and steering wheel.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more American Bittern photos, please visit here.

Credits

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for about half of the photos in this article.