Shitepoke personified

Shitepoke is Southern vernacular for the American Green Heron (Butorides virescens) - a rather lackluster wading bird that frequents ponds and creek banks over much of the southeast. It preys on frogs, tadpoles, minnows, and any other small aquatic critter it can spear with its rapier swift beak. With exquisitely evolved protective coloration, it will stand motionless for an eternity until it spies its quarry; then, with lighting economy of motion, the deed is done, and its immobile stance is reset like a steel trap.

The transliteration shitepoke derives from the creature's signature behavior when flushed or poked (as it were): a vertical take-off - punctuated by a piercing skeeeee - accompanied by the peristaltic evacuation of the the contents of its bowels in a viscous stream, invariably nozzled in a colorful contrail for yards along the trajectory of its flight plan. (The masthead above captures the eponymous shitepoke's pre-flight elimination.)

Accordingly, the epithet shitepoke has come to describe someone who revels in the drama of needless commotion, accompanied by a lot of noise and fanfare, ultimately leaving someone else to clean up the mess. Or simplified: someone whose only contribution to the issue at hand is a load of shite.

For that, I dedicate this venture to the lowly and much maligned shitepoke.

Magnificent action-shot of shitepoke spearing quarry 

Shitepoke (Butorides virescens)