Susan Gallagher put on safety glasses before opening the cage in which an American Bittern is rehabbing.

“They are fish eaters so they go for shiny things, so it’s important to wear the safety glasses,” said Gallagher, chief naturalist at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center in Summit Hill.The bittern, listed as endangered and protected under the Game and Wildlife Code, was found injured in Bloomsburg and brought to the center for rehabilitation.Bloomsburg resident Justin Fischer found the odd bird in his yard, pecking through a chain-link fence at the neighbor’s dog.He confirmed through a web search that the bird — able to walk but not fly — was an American Bittern. He corralled it to a safe area of the yard and called the game commission.However, Wildlife Conservation Officer Michael College was skeptical when he received the call. Finding an American Bittern in an urban area away from wetlands would be unusual.The large bird, with its long legs and neck helping it stand over a foot tall, greeted College with its stabbing bill and angry guttural sounds.The American Bittern, a member of the heron family, lives in scattered wetlands found in the northwestern part of the state, and in isolated pockets of the northeast. According to the game commission, the American Bittern has suffered greatly from the loss of wetland habitat in most other parts of Pennsylvania.The solitary and secretive bird is cryptically colored, with streaking brown and white plumage, and black moustachelike cheek markings.This color scheme makes detection by potential predators difficult as the bittern stands upright, bill pointing skyward among wetland grasses, swaying with the breeze.Both sexes are colored alike.American Bitterns feed along wetland shorelines where they prey on frogs, fish, snakes, crayfish and insects.Prey is snatched with a quick, forceful, downward thrust of the bird’s sharp bill.They breed in extensive freshwater marshes, especially those with dense stands of cattails and thick patches of bulrushes, grasses, and sedges, intermixed with pockets of open water.The low-frequency gulping call of the American Bittern is distinctive and the sound carries for over a mile.The males make a bizarre, resonant, three-syllable “pump-er-lunk” call that has a somewhat liquid quality.The females call is quieter. This sound is preceded by the gulping of air as the bird makes violent body contortions while inflating its esophagus. The bittern belches out the stored air to unleash the unique call to attract mates and announce its territory.College surmised the bird might have hit a window, power line, or other obstruction along its migratory route.College carefully placed the injured bird in a large pet carrier and drove to the Carbon County Environmental Education Center in Summit Hill, where the bittern could receive a professional medical evaluation and treatment.Gallagher said the bird suffered an injury to the outer portion of its right wing and she has high hopes that it can be released back into the wild.“The injured wing is bandaged and the bittern is alert and eating live fish,” Gallagher reports.“The prognosis is good and our plan is to allow a few weeks for the wing to heal before moving the bird to a flight pen where it can exercise muscles in preparation for release in a suitable wetland habitat.”The Pennsylvania Game Commission contributed to this report.