Family Ardeidae

Least Bittern

Status Rare in summer. Breeds. Although listed by Blakiston and Bland (1857) as "accidental," the first concrete report was of a very early bird taken on 16 March 1896 at Prospect, Halifax County (Piers 1898). Another was found alive, tangled in eelgrass, on Cape Sable Island on 25 April 1907. The earliest of the 14 individuals recorded since 1960 were seen on 19 May 1980 and 1984, the latest on 11 November 1973. A specimen in the Nova Scotia Museum was collected from Upper Musquodoboit, Halifax County, on 28 November 1906. In recent years the bird has been heard and seen regularly in the Amherst Point Bird Sanctuary, where Mark Forbes in 1982 discovered and photographed the first and only nest in the province. Two birds reported near Sydney in early June 1924 (I.A. Bayley) and another at Truro on 23 June 1949 (S.A. Elliot) suggest that they may occasionally nest elsewhere.

Description Length: 28-35 cm. Adult male: Crown, back and tail glossy black; sides of head, hindneck and area on wings chestnut; outer wing coverts buff and flight feathers slaty. Throat and underparts white, washed with buff. There is a blackish patch on either side of breast. Adult female: Similar, but black on back and crown is replaced by glossy umber.

Breeding Nest: In dense cattails or other emergent marsh vegetation; made of both dry and living plant material. Eggs: 2-7; pale blue or greenish. The nest discovered by Mark Forbes in the Amherst Point Bird Sanctuary contained six eggs. Unfortunately, the chicks were killed by a heavy rain in late June.

Range Breeds from Oregon and extreme southern Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, south to the West Indies, Paraguay and Brazil. Winters from northern Florida and southern California southward.

Remarks These little acrobats of the cattail swales have long since learned, in the eternal struggle for survival, that instead of taking wing when danger threatens, it is usually safer to run and hide and when migrating, to do so under cover of darkness.