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.
