American bittern

Without golf balls whizzing overhead, the land has become habitat for migratory shorebirds, among them black-necked stilts, greater yellowlegs and sandpipers, and has even drawn the secretive American bittern.

An officer picked up an American bittern that had flown into a window and took it to City Wildlife for rehabilitation.

Another unusual species more often heard than seen on the refuge is the American bittern.

Below, out of the swamp sedge, rises the mournful cry of the quabird—the American bittern—and from the same, the deep sonorous bellow of that ugliest animal on earth—the alligator.

The great blue heron and American bittern are not common, but less rare than they are supposed to be.