The Least Bittern Ixobrychus exilis By: Annie Scientific Classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Ciconiiformes Family: Ardeidae Genus: Ixobrychus Species: exilis

Natural History

The least bittern is a warm-blooded animal, which means they keep a consistent body temperature no matter what the temperature is around them. All birds are warm-blooded. Warmbloodedness allows birds to have the high level of energy that they need to fly.

All birds also have feathers that serve two main purposes. They keep the bird warm, and they help them fly. The three main parts of these feathers are the vain, the rachis, and the quill. The vain, or the flat part of the feather, is composed of many little threads that look like they are zippered together. Another important part is the rachis. The rachis supports the vain. The quill is the bottom section of the rachis and it is attached to the actual skin of the bird. Quills serve as insulation to keep the bird warm.

All birds have two legs, a beak, feathers, and hollow bones that are strong with inside supports. Birds all also belong to the phylum Chordata which means they have a backbone. The first kind of bird known was the pterodactyl, a bird found in the prehistoric times that was the first new birdlike animal that could fly. It did not have feathers.

Habitat

The least bittern lives in a marshland environment with the rest of its population in various places in the eastern part of the United States. The least bittern goes to South America for the winter. Least bitterns live in small, 6-inch nests that are elevated on platforms. The nests are made from different reeds and grasses found by the open water or in the nearby woods. They were once thought to have shared a home with blackbirds because their habitats, or place where its population lives, were very similar.

Least bitterns can usually be found living by cattails, the most common aquatic plant in the United States. This habitat is very unique because of the many birds that also live in that community. A lot of other birds are also in danger due to the few marshes left because of all the draining and filling that humans have done. The least bittern has a little bit of protection from predators like snapping turtles and red-tailed hawks by the woody vegetation that surrounds marshes. Its eggs are eaten mostly by snakes, turtles,crows, raccoons, mink, and other small animals. This is why their population is in decline.

The destruction of the marshes is one of the main reasons the least bittern is threatened today, but they still have a high chance of surviving if we keep protecting the few marshes we have left.

Present Status

The least bittern is a threatened bird in the State of Maine.

Physical Description

The least bittern is the smallest member of the heron family. It only weighs 1.5-4 ounces. It’s only 11-14 inches long with a 16-18 inch wingspan.

The least bittern has very unique markings all over its body, starting with the head. It has a brownish-green cap on the top of its head as an adult. The least bittern’s body is a light brown, or sometimes a light reddish color but that is very rare, with black wings and a white underside. The male least bittern has a long skinny neck that is noticeably different from the female’s, which is much shorter. The least bittern’s bill is yellow or blackish.

Some of the least bitterns have black wings with chestnut colored wing patches.

The main difference between the male and female is not the color, like it is with most birds, but it is the neck. The neck of a male is long and skinny and the neck of the female is short and plump. The juvenile or young least bittern is smaller, and has a smaller looking eye. It also doesn't have a cap on its head like it will when it’s older.

Diet And Eating Habits

In its marshland habitat, or place where its population lives, the least bittern eats an assortment of small flying insects. The least bittern is a carnivore, which means it has a diet of only meat. It likes to eat things like small amphibians like frogs, tadpoles, and salamanders that are near the edge of the shoreline because they are easier to catch. This is all part of the circle of life. It also eats lots of other small animals like leeches, slugs, crayfish, and occasionally shrews and mice in that food chain. It has a lot of diversity in its diet, which is very good because if one of the things it eats dies off, then it will still thrive because it can eat other animals.

When catching its food the least bittern has many different strategies it uses. Unlike most other birds, the least bittern eats small mammals and some insects, not just insects. The most popular strategies that my bird uses to catch its food is it sits on the water’s edge completely still, with its beak pointed up to try and persuade things to fly into its mouth. The least bittern will also put its beak up in the air when it gets frightened. I think that the reason the bird does this is because it looks much bigger when its neck is stretched out.

Causes For Endangerment

The main reason that the least bittern is threatened today is because, like most birds, its environment and its ecosystem are in trouble.

The main reason its environment is in trouble is because 90% of original marshland environments are gone due to the draining and filling that is done. Draining and filling is sometimes accomplished by us, trying to build homes which can really harm the ecosystem. It can also be done naturally by summer droughts and evaporation that causes the areas to dry up. Other times the areas are overfilled when water levels are highest because of melting snow and flooding in the spring. Without these marshes the least bittern has almost no way of laying eggs successfully and since they only lay about 4-5 eggs in late May, they don’t have very many born each year.

Another reason the least bittern is threatened is because of people. Since least bitterns live near water, the pollution that comes from the boats can also harm them. Other types of pollution are in the air and from the trash that comes from all over.

The least bittern is only protected by Canada and the United States. Surveys are being conducted to keep count of the least bittern and to find out the different locations where they might be nesting. If they keep doing these things, the least bittern has a very high chance of surviving in the wilderness.

Personal Essay

If you asked me what a least bittern was before I started this project, I wouldn't know. I wouldn't even know it was a bird or how valuable it is to our ecosystem today. Being valuable doesn’t mean the whole ecosystem would completely fall apart if it does eventually become extinct, but without diversity in our ecosystem, it would.

Diversity strengthens our ecosystem because what would happen if the least bittern only ate shrews and shrews died off? The least bittern would have nothing else to eat and it would die off as well. With the least bittern gone the animals that ate it would die, and so on and so forth until the whole ecosystem was affected.

The main reason why this affects us so much is because animals help us in many different ways. When animals are alive they are consumers. When they die they decompose and go down into the ground, where they can grow up through the soil using energy from the sun to become the producers that animals and humans eat.

The least bittern has a very diverse diet of marshland animals, so if one dies off the least bittern can switch if it needs to. But what happens if all the marshes start to get drained and filled? The many different things that it does eat will become extinct, and they may not have anything to eat in the future. If we don’t stop harming marshes, the ecosystem will fall apart and it won’t just hurt the population of the animals, it will hurt us as well. The more diversity we have in our ecosystem, the less of a chance we have of allowing animals to become extinct, and dissapearing forever. The more diversity we have in our ecosystem, the better chance different species have to thrive alone in the wilderness.

Biblography

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