BITTERN (Botarus Stellaris): A rather large brown heron, blotched, mottled and streaked with black, gape blue-green. Very skulking, so less often seen than heard uttering its permeating low booming or “mooing” song, like a distant cow or foghorn. Stands hunched up like a large domestic fowl, but looks very different in alert or alarm positions and striking crouched threat posture with wings outstretched. Flight call a harsh “kwow” or “kwah.” Extensive reed-beds, fens and swamps, not colonial, only feeding in the open in hard weather.
(Collins Pocket Birds of Britain and Europe.)
"And the loud Bittern from the bull-rush home
Gave from the Salt-ditch side the bellowing boom"
-- George Crabbe, From The Borough (1810)
HENRY COW -- BITTERN STORM OVER ULM
YARDBIRDS -- GOT TO HURRY
BERN ELLIOT AND THE FENMEN -- TALKING ABOUT YOU (LIVE)
EURASIAN BITTERN'S THREAT DISPLAY
ROYAL SOCIETY FOR PROTECTION OF BIRDS (RSPB) -- EURASIAN BITTERN -- INCLUDING SOUND FILE
Ulm -- View from Ulm Minster (built 1377-1890). The world's tallest church and the fourth tallest structure constructed before the 20th century.
"Fenland" in eastern England marked with black line.
NOTE: Using these facts and images, I have been trying all weekend to visualize a Bittern Storm Over Ulm.