Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the bittern [its habit of defecating when frightened].

1775		First Bk Amer. Chronicles 13: They drummed with their drums, and piped with their pipes, and running to and fro like shite-pokes on the muddy shore [DA].
1799		B.S. Barton Fragments National Hist. Pennsylvania I 18: Ardea virescens. Commonly called S———e Poke [DA].
1845		W.T. Porter Big Bear of Arkansas (1847) 16: Game, indeed [...] with them it means chippen-birds and shite-pokes.
1854		S.F. Sun 14 Dec. 2/3: [Californians eat] any thing that wears feathers—from cranes, shitepokes, buzzards and crows, to sparrows and tomtits [DA].
1855		Raleigh Register (NC) 8 Sept. 3/4: A husbandman pitched his net [...] and caught both cranes and geese. Among them was a shite-poke.
1889		South Wales Echo 31 Oct. 4/4: ‘Think I’m a shitepoke an’ live in the crick, do you?’.
1897		Illus. Sporting & Dramatic News 25 Sept. 27/2: The shitepoke prefers running water.
1905		‘Central Connecticut Word-List’ in DN III:i 18: shitepoke, n. A species of heron.
1911		G. Stratton-Porter Harvester 402: Make the cows, and the ducks, and the chickens, and the shitepokes well.
1916		Berwicks. News 9 May 4/1: A shitepoke skulking along the river bank [...] cried ‘Cowk, cowk!’.
1927		C. Woofter ‘Dialect Words and Phrases from West-Central West Virginia’ in AS II:8 364: shitepoke (n.), a wild duck.
1948		Mencken Amer. Lang. Supplement II 176: The green heron [is] commonly known elsewhere as the shitepoke [DA].

2. a general term of abuse [synon. with shitbag under shit n.].

1855		Raleigh Register (NC) 8 Sept. 3/4: Billy pleaded hard for his life, saying he was neither a Catholic or Abolitionist, but a poor little shite-poke of an editor .
1910		Topeka Dly Capital (KS) 4 Dec. 23/1: As I started for first base, someone [...] yelled, ‘Holy Smoke! See the shitepoke!’.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 12: You know whut dat triflin’ Bud Ellis ’lowed? ’Lowed y’all must ’ve swapped runnin’ gears wid a shitepoke and got hornswaggled outen de butt!
1936		D. Lutes Country Kitchen 19: Of course I’ll return it—when they’ve returned all the molasses and sugar and eggs and everything else they’ve borrowed in the last year—the ole shitepoke! [DA].
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 48: He’s a tough ol’ shitepoke.
1986		S. King It (1987) 931: Why settle for just the bitch when they could have all seven of the little shitepokes?