Why does this bird look like a "screaming chicken"?

A while ago, I saw a video online showing a person in Karamay rescuing a small water bird that got lost in the city. The little bird had a long neck and a pointed beak, and after eating and drinking its fill, it happily hopped back to nature.

Source | Ping'an Tianshan

Originally, this is a very common news about rescuing wild animals, but the protagonist of this story is the kind that can bring traffic every minute, so it is worth introducing. Let's look at it from a different angle.

Is this a 2D or 3D bird?

Change your thinking and look at this look. Will you immediately think of this stress relief master?

Source | Internet

It is rumored online that the prototype of the Screaming Chicken is the Reed Bittern , but based on the Screaming Chicken's yellow skin, red comb, black eyes, goose bumps all over its body, and its loud screams at every turn, the editor deeply suspects that its prototype is a plucked rooster that grew up in a chicken farm (and was slaughtered as soon as it reached adulthood), rather than the Reed Bittern.

The calls of bitterns are also completely different. The calls of bitterns are generally low-pitched, and some even sound like frogs croaking.

Besides, crying is not its characteristic, because if it cries, its identity will be exposed: it is now (carefully disguised as) a withered yellow reed, how can a reed scream, right?

Source | Internet What on earth did the poor bitterns go through that made them choose to stretch their necks and pretend to be a plant regardless of the effect?

1. The coward hiding in the cattails and reeds

The bittern is a genus under the Ardeidae family. The protagonist of our article today is one of its species: the yellow-spotted bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis).

Yellow-spotted bittern

Source | Chung Kiu, Ryan Cheng

There are three pronunciations of bittern. Here it is pronounced as jiān, which is the general name of the heron family. The yellow-spotted bittern is also called the yellow bittern, which belongs to the genus bittern of the family Ardeidae in the order Pelecaniformes.

The genus Ixobrychus is not a large family, with only 8 species and 18 subspecies. In addition to the yellow-spotted bittern, there are also the small bittern (Ixobrychus minutus), the chestnut bittern (Ixobrychus cinnamomeus), the purple-backed bittern (Ixobrychus eurhythmus), the large bittern (Ixobrychus exilis), and so on.

Small bittern

Source | Ron Knight

Reed bittern likes to live in open waters with large areas of reeds and cattails in plains and low mountains and hills, especially in some small and medium-sized lakes, reservoirs, ponds and swamps. It feeds on small fish, shrimps, frogs, loaches and aquatic insects.

Most bitterns are timid, cautious, and shy. They hide in the grass at the slightest sign of trouble, making them difficult to observe. How timid are they? In order not to expose their targets, they do not fly easily, but carefully move through the tall cattails and reeds by the water or on the endless lotus leaves.

Purple-backed bittern

Source | Francesco Veronesi

When frightened, it immediately stretches its neck and stands still, motionless. The round ball of hair is stretched into a thin spear. It hopes to rely on the colors and stripes on its body to disguise itself as cattail, reed and other plants and hide in the surrounding environment, just like the famous camouflage master stick insect often does.

If that doesn't work, they'll just fly up screaming and run as fast as they can. Why not just dive under the water and swim away?

This is because although the reed bittern is relatively small, it is also a wading bird that lives in shallow water and on the shore, rather than a swimming bird - it has a long beak, long legs, long neck, and underdeveloped webbed feet. The reed bittern is a medium-sized water bird, and most of them are less than 38cm long when they are adults.

2. The affectionate Huang Xiaolu

The yellow-spotted bittern has a nickname in the folk, which is very cute, such as water camel and yellow little egret. Every summer, they migrate to their breeding grounds in groups of two or three, and then start to look for their favorite partners separately.

Source | JJ Harrison

There is often a color difference between males and females, but it is usually just enough to be distinguished by the naked eye, rather than a huge difference like that between roosters and hens.

The male bird stands on a high branch and looks out. Once it spots a female bird, it will first salute her with its eyes while lifting its tail. It then flies to her side and stretches its neck to show its closeness. Finally, it may show off its agility by "climbing walls and running across the cattails" and gradually jump towards the female bird.

The female bird is very reserved before marriage and avoids the male bird suitors. After marriage, she follows the husband's lead and leaves important matters, such as where to build the nest, to the male bird.

3. Third-rate architects, first-rate maintenance workers

According to a field survey, although the yellow-spotted bittern is called a "reed" bittern, it prefers to build its nest in cattails, followed by reeds and weeds. The yellow-spotted bittern usually builds its nest in the upper layer of cattails in the marsh, or on the edge of reeds near the water, while the purple-backed bittern may also build its nest on the branches of low bushes.

When building a nest, both the female and male birds work together. The female bird is mainly responsible for construction , while the male bird is mainly responsible for supervision. Oh, no, the male bird is responsible for monitoring the surroundings and protecting the female bird and the nest .

Generally speaking, one person does the work and the other watches.

They will bend the upper parts of 17-23 cattails or reed leaves that grow together into a net basket, and then pick up some dead branches and cattail leaves to spread inside. In this way, a bowl-shaped, plate-shaped, or saucer-shaped nest is built. It only takes 7-12 days from design to completion.

To be honest, the yellow-spotted bittern is barely good enough in terms of nesting. The nests it builds are of simple structure and barely usable. They cannot be compared with the works of those nest-building masters.

Compared with the "bunker" of the brown-billed bird in the picture, the nest of the bittern is not even as good as a "tent"

Source | showCharles J. Sharp

The growth of cattails, wind, rain, and human trampling all threaten the usability of their nests. In fact, it is not news among the animals living on the edge of the "river and lake" that their nests become tilted, loose and deformed, or even collapse in a small part, requiring constant repair.

To the bitterns, this is not a big deal, because they are very good at "hands-on" and it only takes a few minutes to repair the nest. In fact, in most parts of the world, bitterns are migratory birds, and there is really no need to "decorate" a nest that they live in for less than a year. Being able to harvest their own babies in this simple nest is what the bitterns care about most.

4. For the sake of her children, a mother is not afraid of anything.

After the nest is built, the female bird begins to lay eggs and incubate them. Interestingly, the female bird generally lays one egg a day, a total of 4-7 eggs. During the egg-laying period, the female bird does not incubate or live in the nest, but only arranges the male bird to guard outside the nest during the day. After the incubation begins, the female bird rarely leaves the house, and the male bird also accompanies her outside the nest.

Eggs of the yellow-spotted bittern

Source | Klaus Rassinger, Gerhard Cammerer

After about half a month, the chick is ready to hatch. The female bird first pecks a hole in the eggshell for the chick, and the chick spends 8-12 hours struggling out of the shell.

The first day after all the chicks are hatched is the parent-child time of the female bird. The female bird hugs the chicks like incubating eggs and gives them warmth. At this time, maternal love will give this natural coward strength. Even if a big and strong human approaches within 1 meter, the female bird will not run away. Instead, she straightens her neck to the sky, glaring at the intruder to intimidate him. At this time, the feathers on the female bird's neck will also stand up slightly!

In this situation, generally speaking, the best option for people is to retreat.

A warm family portrait of the yellow-spotted bittern

Source | "Yellow bittern "settles" in the Yu-niao River in Muping"

5. Let’s protect the elves together!

Reed bitterns are widely distributed in the world, and can be found on all major continents except Antarctica, but their numbers are small.

Distribution of Yellow-spotted Bittern

Source | GBIF

Distribution of the small bittern

Source | GBIF

Distribution of the bittern

Source | GBIF

The Yellow-spotted Bittern is a wild terrestrial animal with important ecological, scientific and social value under state protection, i.e. a "three-protected" animal. Therefore, if you are lucky enough to see them in real life, do not disturb them. You should know that these cute little guys are more timid, interesting and loving than you think!

Yellow-spotted bittern fishing

Source | Cp9asngf