Feathered Masters of Disguise

     American bitterns are members of the heron family and have the long legs, necks and beaks to prove it.  Bitterns' habitats are patches of cattails and phragmites that emerge from mud in shallow water and form marshes around inland ponds and wetlands, and along estuaries and sea coasts, where they hunt for food and raise young each year on cattail platforms on the ground near water.  There, on occasion, I have heard the pumping songs of male bitterns that were establishing nesting territories. And there bitterns stalk small fish, tadpoles, frogs, small snakes, insects and other creatures of wetlands to feed themselves and their young. 
     Bitterns plumages are brown, streaked with black, which camouflages them as they carefully skulk among cattails and phragmites.  Indeed, American bitterns are difficult to spot in their native habitats.  I have seen a few, only by chance, by seeing through their camouflage.   
     American bitterns, as all forms of life, are built to help them catch their meals.  Bitterns sneak slowly and cautiously through cattails and phragmites to sneak up on unsuspecting prey in the shallows.  They have long legs for wading in water, as do all their heron kin.  And they have long toes on each foot that work like snow shoes, by spreading the weight of the birds across the mud so they don't sink in it and get stuck in the mud, allowing the escape of potential victims.  They also have a lengthy and curved nail on each toe that helps them get a grip on the mud as they wade the shallows.  Slipping in the mud creates jerky motions, indicating to prey that potential danger is near, causing them to flee.  
     Bitterns, like all their heron relatives, have lengthy necks and bills to reach out and grab prey.  Each bittern moves slowly and quietly to within striking distance of its victims, throws out its long neck and, hopefully, snares the food animals it targeted.  They are not successful with every plunge at prey, but often enough to be well fed.          
     Bitterns have another couple of tricks that allow them to blend well into their background.  They have long, lengthwise stripes of orange-brown on their throats.  When they think they are spotted by a predator, or they don't want to noticed by potential prey, they stand still and stretch their necks skyward, revealing those stripes that resemble cattails or phragmites.  Those throat streaks mimic the reeds in the marshes, which is a form of blending in to the point of being invisible.  And to add to that mimicry, if the reeds sway in the wind, the bittern weaves back and forth with them.  I have seen a couple of bitterns doing that on the edges of a couple of cattail marshes.
     How do the bitterns know they have vertical streaks on their throats and how do they know to rock with the cattails and phragmites in the wind to enhance the mimicry?  I don't think they know the answer to either question.  Those stripes happen to be on their throats by chance and the birds'
 swaying with the wind as protective mimicry just happened to work out right for the bitterns of long ago.  They have purposefully done nothing.  The bitterns that had those two traits by luck were able to survive long enough to reproduce, passing their genes for those characteristics on to their offspring, generation after generation.
     And so it is with all life.  Individuals are born with traits that aid in survival and reproduction, passing successful genes to their descendants.  American bitterns are a successful species, though seldom seen because of their retiring habits and dense habitats through each year.  They do have
unique characteristics that protect them and help them catch food, adding to their success.