The Yellow Bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis) is a small bittern. It is of Old World origins, breeding in the northern Indian Subcontinent, east to Japan and Indonesia. It is mainly resident, but some northern birds migrate short distances. It has been recorded as a vagrant in Alaska and there is a single sighting in Britain, from Radipole Lake, Dorset on November 23, 1962 – however, the BOU have always considered this occurrence to be of uncertain provenance and currently it is not accepted onto the official British List.
This is a small species at 36 to 38 cm in length, with a short neck and longish bill. The male is uniformly dull yellow above and buff below. The head and neck are chestnut, with a black crown. The female's crown, neck and breast are streaked brown, and the juvenile is like the female but heavily streaked brown below, and mottled with buff above. Yellow bitterns feed on insects, fish and amphibians.
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net
is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there
Breeding habitat
The yellow bittern's breeding habitat is reed beds. They nest on platforms of reeds in shrubs. Four to six eggs are laid. They can be difficult to see, given their skulking lifestyle and reed bed habitat, but tend to fly fairly frequently, when the striking contrast between the black flight feathers and the otherwise yellowish plumage makes them unmistakable.
Egg, Collection Museum Wiesbaden
By Klaus Rassinger und Gerhard Cammerer, Museum Wiesbaden - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38166363
Protected status
The yellow bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis) is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
Listen to the Yellow Bittern
Remarks from the Recordist
Calls from a single bird flushing in front of me at the edge of a large, marshy lake.
Conservation status
IUCN Red List
of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia