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Australasian Bittern
Botaurus poiciloptilus
-41.2482, 172.116
Field Notes
Description:
A deceptive bird in size and in camouflage. Colouration is mainly brown with stripes and flecks of grey and white and lighter brown. His head is small with a very large strong straight beak. They are heron in appearance, but can change their shape at will and look like anything from a stick to wavy bit of tussock.
They have very short tails, and are quite recognizable when they fly, looking like a sort of cut off heron , with a raggedy tail, but it is not their tail at all , it is their long yellow feet extending out behind them beyond the end of their tail.
Habitat:
Seen in open farmland near marshy watery ditches.
Notes:
Bitterns are like some kind of rare pokemon for birders here, they are quite rare in NZ I think, at least in visibility. This is the not my first sighting of a bittern here, but the first decent photo, because he was right by the road just doing his stick thing, no one else even noticed him there...
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