Little Bittern   Ixobrychus minutus 

Etymology:

• Ixobrychus : Greek word ixias reed-like plant; brukhomai – bellow.  { found bellow reeds}

• Minutus: latin word for Little derived from minuere to make smaller

Vernacular Names: Kash: Goi, Mar: Chota Tapas

Distribution in India: Resident of Kashmir and widely seen in North India.

Description: Size of 27–38 cm; Weight of 59–150 g; wingspan of 40–58 cm. The male has blackish crown and modest crest & greyish face-sides. The back, tail and flight feathers are also blackish, with buff-white wing-coverts. It has white underwings and buffish-white underparts, sometimes with slight streaking. The lores and base of bill range in colour from lemon-yellow to orangish yellow, sometimes flushing red during courtship. The legs are variable shades of yellow or green, typically yellow behind. The eyes are yellow; bill is yellow or yellow-green, with dark brown culmen ridge. The female can have more contrasted plumage, more similar to that of male, but is typically smaller and duller, with a brown or rufous tone to dark parts of plumage, smaller and slightly streaked wing patches, and streaked underparts. The juvenile is like an adult female, but more heavily streaked overall, with brown-streaked crown and heavily mottled brown and buff wing-coverts.

Habitat: It is found in extensive range, from dense forest to deserts , well-vegetated swamps, marshes and drainage ditches., freshwater marshes with reedbeds or other kinds of dense aquatic vegetation , margins of lakes, pools, reservoirs, peat bogs, oases , wooded swamps, overgrown banks of streams and rivers, wet grassland and rice fields. During migration and in winter it is found on more open waters, and even in heavily disturbed  zones, as well as dry land including fields of cereals or sugar cane.. It is found at 1800 m in Kashmir and Western Himalayas.

Food habits: It eats mainly fish, also aquatic insects and their larvae, crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles . Sometimes feeds on worms, spiders, molluscs, crustaceans ,frogs, tadpoles, eggs, small reptiles . It is  active around dawn and dusk, but also feeds during day.

Breeding habits:  They  breed  in India nesting mainly May–Jul. They are monogamous. Usually they are solitary, sometimes forms small, loose groups with other herons or other waterbirds. The nest is in aquatic vegetation like reeds, rushes, grasses or papyrus, rarely in in bushes or Trees. The nest has conical base and is shallow platform of reeds and twigs lined with leaves or finer stems, constructed by male over period of 4–5 days. They might re-use same nest in subsequent season. They lay a clutch of 2–9 white eggs (occasionally greenish eggs), . The incubation period is 16–21 days, done by both adults, commencing with first, second or third eggs. The chicks hatch asynchronously and have pink-buff down, white below, with black irides, dull pink to grey bill, blue-grey to olive-yellow facial skin, and olive-grey legs and feet with pink toe. The fledging period is 25–30 days,& young leave nest after 14–16 days.