The Eurasian bittern is unmistakable – if you can catch a glimpse of it, for it is excellently adapted to life in reedbeds. Its plumage is yellow-brown and golden-brown with black markings and dark vertical stripes on the upperparts. This makes it look “reedy”, and despite its height, it is well camouflaged in the reedbeds. Its movements are very cautious and hardly betray it even when it stands on the edge of a reedbed. When alarmed, it adopts a frozen camouflage position with neck and bill stretched upward to the sky. Merely in spring, the male attracts attention in the breeding areas with its loud, deep and coarse territorial call. |
