I spent a lot of my free time bird watching and taking pictures. I enjoy studying natural history and how things in the living world interact. In my years of this pursuit one thing became very clear.Nature is really not kind to injured animals. The natural world is full of predator vs prey relationships and life is hard. Its a constant battle to survive, find food and live on to reproduce. Rarely do you see a lame animal in the wild. Anything that interferes with your ability to evade predators or find food is a death sentence. It takes a fierce will to live and sometimes to adapt to an injury to make it in the wild. I was reminded of all this yesterday when visiting one my local birding spots. There are a myriad of species of birds that call this park home or visit from time to time...one such bird is the American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus). It is a medium sized heron that tends be more secretive than other herons. I rarely them in my area more often hear them but they are found across the USA. To my joy, I came across one this weekend.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c8fac55d_h.jpg_AJS8107 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
When I come across a bird I don't normally see I tend to take a bunch of pics and then watch.. try to get a handle on its behavior. One thing that I noticed right away was this Bittern was Lame. It favored one foot over the other. It had moved in a strange manner as result. Normally herons slowly walk around the marshes, pause and scan the area near them for prey in reach and the stab with the bills. The walk itself is slow and deliberate. Not this fellow, With every step he had to lift his injured foot high and swing the whole leg around to the front of him because of his large feet. As that foot came down the bird was actually walking on its "ankle" at times.It must have been very difficult to walk and painful. As I watched I could see 3 of its long toes were black..I am guessing they are not getting enough blood flow. I did see him catching food though but I could not see this bird lasting long in that state. I planned on trying to get in touch with the area bird rehabilitator and see if they could help it.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...17ccc589_h.jpg_AJS8570 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...41cac446_h.jpg_AJS8752 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
fish in mouth
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f9502c40_h.jpg_AJS8808 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8f8ae5d0_h.jpg_AJS8690 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b847ff25_h.jpg_AJS8648 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0214fa8a_b.jpg_AJS8517 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6337c1ea_h.jpg_AJS8757_01 by Al Sabetta, on Flickr
After I left that area and was birding a little further along the marsh I ran into a few other bird watchers and as is common we talked about the birds about that day. I asked if they had seen the Bittern today and they had not seen one since early fall. I told them about the one I had just seen with the bad foot and apparently they had seen the same one months earlier with the same injury! I was really surprised by that. It seems my feathered friend was a true survivor! I don't know how well it will fair as the winter progresses and breeding season will be challenging after that. The males combat dance is pretty aggressive. But for now, I am reminded that though birds are Beautiful and look delicate, if they were truly wimpy, they probably would not have survived as group when their dinosaur predecessors went extinct. I hope that my feathered friend here does survive... I will be rooting for him and looking for him often.
al
