The first time I drove the main auto tour route last week at Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge the sun had already gone down. But when I looked down into the canal that the road parallels, I saw a bird that I had never seen in Colorado before. There was an American Bittern.

This is a secretive bird, so I moved very slowly not to spook it. The way that bitterns hide is to stretch out their necks so as to make like a reed:

The American Bittern Pretends to be a Reed

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When it relaxed, this one went back to hunting. Bitterns are in the heron family, and like all of the birds in that family I get special pleasure from watching them. They hunt so patiently and still. I try to emulate them.

Back to the Hunt

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My Canon 7D camera performs much better in low light than my earlier cameras. I took both of these shots at ISO 3200 without noticeable noise.