What's the difference between bittern and gittern?
Bittern
Definition:
(n.) A wading bird of the genus Botaurus, allied to the herons, of various species.
(a.) The brine which remains in salt works after the salt is concreted, having a bitter taste from the chloride of magnesium which it contains.
(a.) A very bitter compound of quassia, cocculus Indicus, etc., used by fraudulent brewers in adulterating beer.
Example Sentences:
(1) For the first time in 30 years, and possibly longer, fresh water from deep underground is not filling the ditches and reedbeds of the 40-hectare reserve known for its bitterns, water voles and marsh harriers.
(2) In many herons and bitterns, only one cecum is present, and in the secretary bird there are two pairs of ceca.
(3) Winners and losers Going: Species facing "severe" threats in England Red squirrel Northern bluefin tuna Natterjack toad Common skate Alpine foxtail Kittiwake Grey plover Shrill carder bumblebee Recovering: Recent conservation success stories Pole cat Large blue butterfly Red kite Ladybird spider Pink meadowcap Sand lizard Pool frog Bittern
(4) Visitors understandably make a beeline for the big-name big game parks like Yala, but sharing sunrise over the lagoon with Indian pond herons, black and yellow bitterns, a dazzling purple swamp hen, black cormorants, a peacock surveying the scene from a rocky perch and even a small crocodile, had its own magic.
(5) You may find bitterns making their basso profundo hoot, or you could see otters, dragonflies and adders.
(6) All is limpid observation, gliding from one bittern to another, until the startling remark that fading colour enhanced the flowers' "sincerity", as if they have been pressing a case.
(7) Bitterns had almost gone extinct in this country, and they’re now breeding out there.” One of Trevelyan’s students from Ghana will talk about how he and his colleagues managed to save the Togo slippery frog from extinction .
(8) There were just 11 male bitterns in Britain in 1997, but this summer 47 males made their booming call in Somerset alone .
(9) Higher water levels at the Otmoor reserve in Oxfordshire have made reed beds wetter, giving birds such as bitterns a better chance of nesting.
(10) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Malta allows 9,798 hunters to shoot up to 16,000 turtle dove and quail each spring but Packham found injured and dead birds illegally shot last week included swifts, yellow-legged gulls, kestrels and a little bittern.
(11) That will impact on the fish that feed on them and the birds, like the bitterns, which eat the fish."
(12) Bittern single-copy DNA has evolved at a rate approximately 25% faster, and boat-billed heron (Cochearius) and rufescent tiger heron (Tigrisoma lineatum) DNA has evolved approximately 19% slower, than that of day and night herons.
(13) The river is at first open and sunny, but becomes wooded and secretive after two miles, before winding through the reedy lowlands of the Stodmarsh nature reserve , good for spotting bittern, marsh harriers and water vole.
(14) Consider these sentences from near the beginning of A Week: We glided noiselessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel from the covert of the pads, or a bream from her nest, and the smaller bittern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings from some recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of the long grass at our approach, and carried its precious legs away to deposit them in a place of safety.
(15) Nycticorax nycticorax, Ardea cinerea, Egretta garzetta, and Egretta intermedia were naturally infected with Clinostomum complanatum (Trematoda: Clinostomatidae) among fourteen wild herons, seven wild egrets and one wild bittern evaluated at the Veterinary Hospital of Tottori University, Tottori, Japan.