The oblong thing behind one of the reeds is the bird as seen through my camera (although I can actually see it well without the camera).Cashmere is gone so this was the best I could do, but I crawled close enough to the bird to see its features just now. Earlier today I read a post on a favorite blog that recommended this site to anyone wanting to identify birds. It has good photos as well as sound clips. I listened to this earlier today and as I was walking toward the pond the same sound occurred. The bird was facing me from the back of the boat and looked exactly like this photo. An American Bittern after all.