Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested or Nonforested Landscapes

      Any Emergent Wetland 
      or Lowland Brush

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Habitat: It prefers areas of emergent vegetation with deeper water levels than favored by the American Bittern but usually less than one meter. Heavy growths of cattail, bulrush, wild rice, burreed, water smartweed, and reeds are favored feeding sites for its diet of small fish, dragonflies, and other aquatic insects, crayfish, tadpoles, and snails.

Nests are platforms built in dense clumps of vegetation 0.15-0.75 m above water. Cattails, bulrushes, sedges, reeds, and occasionally small trees or bushes like willow or buttonbush support the platform.

Habitat: Fresh, brackish, and , less frequently, salt water wetlands. Prefers marshes with tall vegetation such as cattails, sedges, and scattered bushes.

Special Habitat Requirements: Deep marshes with clumps of emergent vegetation.

Habitat: Fresh marshes, reedy ponds. Mostly freshwater marsh but also brackish marsh, in areas with tall, dense vegetation standing in water. May be over fairly deep water, because it mostly climbs in reeds rather than wading. Sometimes in salt marsh or in mangroves.

Diet: Mostly fish and insects. Eats mostly small fish (such as minnows, sunfish, and perch) and large insects (dragonflies and others); also crayfish, leeches, frogs, tadpoles, small snakes, and other items.

Nest: Site is well concealed in tall marsh growth. Nest is platform created by bending down marsh vegetation, adding sticks and grass on top.