All species › Pelicans, herons and ibises › Herons and bitterns › Pinnated Bittern
Pinnated Bittern | Botaurus pinnatus
Zuid-Amerikaanse roerdomp | Avetoro neotropical
The Pinnated Bittern is the tropical counterpart of the American Bittern: a large, sandy brown heron of marshes with tall grass and reeds. In the region it is a resident in Trinidad, where it is active mainly at dusk and at night.
Voice
In the breeding season, mainly at dusk and at night, a deep, booming poomp or oonk, repeated at intervals. Flushed birds give a hoarse rawk.
Recording: Paul Lenrumé — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
64–76 cm, heavy and thick-necked, with a fairly long, yellowish bill with a dark culmen and yellow-green bare skin around the eye. The plumage is pale sandy brown. The crown is dark brown, the neck finely barred black and buff, the back and wing coverts streaked black and buff, and the underparts cream with brown streaks. In flight the dark slate flight feathers stand out against the pale coverts. Males average heavier than females; the plumage of the sexes is alike. Juveniles are somewhat less sharply marked.
Confusion species
Juvenile Rufescent Tiger Heron Tigrisoma lineatum is coarsely barred black all over, including back and wings, and has a white belly. American Bittern Botaurus lentiginosus has a streaked rather than barred neck and a black neck stripe, and does not occur regularly in Trinidad. Juvenile Black-crowned Night Herons Nycticorax nycticorax are smaller, streaked and have white spots on the wings.
Habitat
Freshwater marshes with tall grasses, sedges, cattail and water hyacinth, flooded grassland and pastures, and rice fields. It stands motionless in the vegetation for long periods and seizes fish, frogs, snakes, insects and small mammals. It breeds in the rainy season; the nest is a platform of plant material in dense vegetation just above the water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
In the region only as a resident in Trinidad, in the lowland freshwater marshes and rice fields; it is absent from Tobago. There is a single record from Aruba. Outside the region in two separate populations: from south-eastern Mexico to Costa Rica, and from Colombia and Venezuela through the Guianas and Brazil to Paraguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Extensive freshwater marshes and rice fields in Trinidad, in early morning or late afternoon. The bird is usually found when it flushes low, showing the dark flight feathers, or when it stands at the edge of the vegetation at dusk; outside the breeding season it is silent.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species has a large range, but numbers are poorly known. In Trinidad it depends on freshwater marshes and rice fields, which are declining through drainage, fires and changes in farming.
Scientific name
Botaurus pinnatus | (Wagler, 1829)
Wagler described the species in 1829 as Ardea pinnata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Botaurus was introduced in 1819 by Stephens. Botaurus is Medieval Latin for a bittern; the word combines Latin bos 'ox' with taurus 'bull', after the booming call (compare butire 'to boom'). pinnatus is Latin for 'feathered, plumed'; exactly what Wagler was referring to has not been established. The specimen the first description was based on came from state of Bahia, Brazil.