WHERE I'M AT

Nanty wandered down a road which ran from the main highway to the little fenland boroughs of the north.  He had read the names on the first milestone out of Fenny Horton -- Ely, Downham, King's Lynn; that was the road Bob and Jock had travelled the night before, and now by the grace of God they should have reached their journey's end.  He had the day before him with only one duty to fulfill, and he deliberately sauntered to quiet his nerves.

From:  John Buchan, The Free Fishers, 1934.

Bern Elliot & The Fenmen -- Talking About You (Live Link)

BITTERN STORM OVER ULM

 

BITTERN (Botarus Stellaris):  A rather large brown heron, blotched, mottled and streaked with black, gape blue-green.  Very skulking, so less often seen than heard uttering its permeating low booming  or “mooing” song, like a distant cow or foghorn.  Stands hunched up like a large domestic fowl,  but looks very different in alert or alarm positions and striking crouched threat posture with wings outstretched.  Flight call a harsh “kwow” or “kwah.”  Extensive reed-beds, fens and swamps, not colonial, only feeding in the open in hard weather. 

(Collins Pocket Birds of Britain and Europe.)


 "And the loud Bittern from the bull-rush home
Gave from the Salt-ditch side the bellowing boom" 

   -- George Crabbe, From The Borough (1810)
 

Links:


HENRY COW -- BITTERN STORM OVER ULM

YARDBIRDS -- GOT TO HURRY 

BERN ELLIOT AND THE FENMEN -- TALKING ABOUT YOU (LIVE)

EURASIAN BITTERN'S THREAT DISPLAY 

ROYAL SOCIETY FOR PROTECTION OF BIRDS (RSPB) -- EURASIAN BITTERN -- INCLUDING SOUND FILE
 

Ulm -- View from Ulm Minster (built 1377-1890).  The world's tallest church and the fourth tallest structure constructed before the 20th century.

The Fens, Suffolk, England.

Staircase to Third Gallery, Ulm Minster's apex.

"Fenland" in eastern England marked with black line.



NOTE:  Using these facts and images, I have been trying all weekend to visualize a Bittern Storm Over Ulm.