Little bittern. Little bittern or spinning top (ixobrychus minutus). Limiting factors and threats

Little Bittern- the smallest of our herons - it is the size of a corncrake or a thin monthly chicken: wing 13.8-16 cm, metatarsus 4.5-5.25 cm, tail 5-5.6 cm. The adult male is painted black on top with a slight metallic sheen on the back. The underparts and neck are sandy-buff with darker narrow long stripes and dark spots descending to the sides of the chest. The female, unlike the male, is reddish-brown above. Juveniles are similar to the female, but their heads are reddish-brown, the dark edges of the feathers of the back are wider, the wing coverts with dark core spots. The eyes and beak are yellow, the legs are greyish-green. The Little Bittern is distributed from Northwest Africa and adjacent islands.

Atlantic Ocean to the east to Semirechye and India. To the north it reaches Baltic Sea, Leningrad region and approximately up to 56 ° N. sh. in Siberia.

In spring, the bittern appears in late April - early May and soon spreads to nesting sites. Nest-building is preceded by pairing. This is accompanied by a characteristic croaking call of the male, games, fights between males, etc. Males fight both in thickets and in the air. Sometimes one of the males quietly sneaks up on the other and with a strong blow kills an opponent in the head.

The nest is built by the female. It looks like a heap of branches and blades of grass, is placed on the reeds, in willow bushes, or even on trees, at a height of 4-4.5 m above the ground. The Little Bittern nests in separate pairs, which is what it resembles, however, often several pairs nest separately in the same swamp. A full clutch of 4-8 eggs occurs at different dates in May. The eggs of the little bittern are white, evenly pointed at both ends, their size is 2.8-2.5 cm. The female incubates mainly, and the male does not leave her and feeds her when she builds a nest, and replaces incubation at first. Leaving the nest in mid-late July, the young begin to move along the branches and bushes and even along the blades of grass, then rise to the wing, and the entire brood disperses. At this time, small bitterns feed intensively and destroy a lot of eggs and chicks. In addition, the little bittern feeds on fish, frogs, molluscs and worms. The Little Bittern is a secretive and cautious bird, very vicious and gluttonous. She leads the twilight or even night image life. At this time, she is awake and eats intensely, during the day she lurks in the thickets.

With the approach of twilight, and also early in the morning, the voice of the little bittern is often heard in the swamp, which looks like a muffled, abrupt bark, repeated quite rarely; the bird itself at this time usually sits quietly on a willow near the water and lets it get close enough to it that it can be reached with an oar.

The Little Bittern runs beautifully and climbs in the most inaccessible thickets. It takes off quickly and easily, its flight is even and rather fast, it flaps its wings frequently. In the event of danger approaching, the little bittern hides like a great bittern, crouching and stretching its neck, and does this both on the ground and sitting on a branch. The Little Bittern can not only swim, but also dives quite well.

In September, the flight of the small bittern to the south begins, stretching for the whole month. It winters in Africa and India.

In economic terms, the little bittern is a very harmful bird: due to its voracity, it exterminates a lot of chicks and eggs, not only small waders, but even ducks, and also eats a large number of fish fry.

Chaplya-lasianik (earlier - Bugai are small)

The whole territory of Belarus

Family Herons - Ardeidae

In Belarus - I. m. minutus (the subspecies inhabits the entire Palearctic part of the species range).

Small breeding, migratory and transit migratory species. It is widely distributed, but in recent decades it has rarely been found almost everywhere. Most of the Belarusian population nests in Polesie.

Zoya Kiseleva, a pond in the md. "Gomselmash", Gomel

The smallest of our herons (smaller than a crow). In the color of the plumage of adult birds, sexual dimorphism is well expressed. The top of the head, back, feathers of the shoulders and uppertail are black with a greenish tint, the top of the neck is gray, the wing coverts are yellow, the ventral side is buffy with a brown longitudinal pattern, the flight and tail feathers are black. The beak is yellow-green, the legs are green. The dorsal side of the female is dark brown with buffy streaks, the sides of the head and neck are reddish-brown, and there is a longitudinal pattern on the front of the neck. Young birds are similar to the female, but there are more dark spots. The weight of males and females is 130-170 g, body length is 31.5-38.5 cm, wingspan is 50-55 cm.

Inhabits various reservoirs with developed coastal herbaceous-shrub vegetation. Keeps in thickets of willows and reeds along the banks of reservoirs, skillfully hiding. It is rare to see a top, usually in the evening hours, when this bird often makes flights from one area of ​​thickets to another. The voice of the male - a repeated jerky "bueh ..." - is also heard mainly at dusk and at night.

In spring, it arrives in April - the first decade of May. Migrates alone at night.

Valery Kiselyov, pond md. "Gomselmash", Gomel

Favorite nesting places are swampy floodplains of slowly flowing rivers with numerous backwaters and oxbow lakes, gently sloping and low shores of lakes and reservoirs, open water, fish ponds, old peat extraction areas with areas of dense thickets of reed, cattail, willow and alder. For the location of the nest, the presence of extensive arrays of reeds or shrubs is not necessary; sometimes a small clump or a separate bush overgrown with grass, or a narrow strip of thickets along the edges of the dams of fish ponds, is enough. Nests were found even in old quarries and sewage treatment plants flooded with water and overgrown with cattail and willow bushes. Occasionally, the bird settles in small overgrown ponds on the outskirts of settlements or in bushy swamps adjacent to them. Due to a secretive way of life, more active at dusk, and also because of nesting in sparsely visited places, the bird rarely catches the eye. This may give the impression that it is rarer than it really is. In nesting areas during the day, individuals can be observed flying over the vegetation of water bodies.

The bittern lives in single pairs, each pair occupies a relatively large nesting area. For the nest, it chooses areas of coastal shrubs or grassy-shrub thickets, often flooded with water or at its very edge. The nest is usually well hidden by the surrounding vegetation.

It is built in the lower forks of branches of shrubs or small trees, in a dense interweaving of stems of reeds, undersized willows, nightshade and sedges, on creases in curtains of dry reeds or cattails. The height of its location depends on the nature of the vegetation. Often a nest built among surface herbaceous plants, almost touches the surface of the water with its base, and if there are convenient forks in willow bushes, it can be found at a height of 50-70 cm, and sometimes even higher.

Valery Kiselyov, pond md. "Gomselmash", Gomel

The nest is built from pieces of dry stems of hard vegetation, often with an admixture of thin twigs of willow and alder, when nesting among shrubs - mainly from twigs. The building material does not twist, and at first the nest is a loose structure in the form of an inverted cone with a weakly expressed tray, lined, although not always, with thinner stems and reed leaves. Nest height 12-15 cm (by the end of incubation 5-6 cm), diameter 17-25 cm; tray depth 1-3 cm, diameter 7-12 cm.

In a complete clutch, most often there are 6 eggs, but often 5, as well as 7. There are clutches of 4, and sometimes of 8-9 eggs. As an exception in Europe, a clutch of 10 eggs was noted. The shell is white, without a pattern, greenish in the light. Egg weight 12 g, length 35 mm (33-37 mm), diameter 26 mm (23-28 mm).

The clutches appear late - in late May - early June, occasionally, especially in the northern regions, only from mid-June. There is one brood per year. In water bodies with frequent and sharp fluctuations in the water level, many low-lying nests are flooded, and the birds are forced to nest again. In such places, it is not uncommon to find clutches at the end of June, and sometimes in July.

Both members of the pair incubate alternately for 16-19 days. The chicks remain in the nest for only 7-9 days, after which they begin to skillfully climb the branches of bushes and reed stems near the nest and leave the nests at the end of the third week of life. However, the young begin to fly only at the age of 30 days.

Autumn departure and migration occur in the 2nd decade of August - September, only a few individuals are found in the first half of October.

The basis of the food of the spinning top is made up of aquatic invertebrates, frogs and small fish. Occasionally eats eggs and chicks in nests small birds nesting in reeds.

The number in Belarus at the end of the XX century. was estimated at 300–600 pairs, the trend is a slight decrease. The Little Bittern has been listed in the Red Data Book of the Republic of Belarus since 1993.

The maximum registered age in Europe is 7 years 10 months.

Valery Kiselyov, md. "Gomselmash", Gomel

Valery Kiselyov, pond md. "Gomselmash", Gomel

Literature

1. Grichik V. V., Burko L. D. " Animal world Belarus. Vertebrates: textbook. allowance "Minsk, 2013. -399 p.

2. Nikiforov M. E., Yaminsky B. V., Shklyarov L. P. "Birds of Belarus: A guide to identification of nests and eggs" Minsk, 1989. -479 p.

3. Gaiduk V. E., Abramova I. V. "Ecology of birds of the south-west of Belarus. Non-passerines: monograph". Brest, 2009. -300s.

4. Fransson, T., Jansson, L., Kolehmainen, T., Kroon, C. & Wenninger, T. (2017) EURING list of longevity records for European birds.

Plan
Introduction
1 General characteristics
2 Distribution
3 Lifestyle
3.1 Nutrition
3.2 Voice
3.3 Breeding

Bibliography

Introduction

Little bittern, or spinning top (lat. Ixobrychus minutus) is a bird of the heron family, the smallest heron.

1. General characteristics

The growth of the small bittern reaches only 36 cm. The weight is 136-145 g, the wing length is about 15 cm. The small bittern is the only representative of the stork order, in which the male and female differ in color. The male bittern has a black cap on its head with a green tint, wings and back, head and neck are creamy white, belly is buffy with whitish endings of feathers. The beak is yellow-greenish. The female is brown with streaks on the back, the belly, head and neck are buffy. The beak of the female is yellow with a brown end.

2. Distribution

The Little Bittern breeds in Europe, Central Asia, Western India, Africa and Australia. European bitterns are migratory birds that fly to Africa for the winter. In Russia, the small bittern can be found from the European part (in the north to St. Petersburg) to Western Siberia.

3. Lifestyle

The Little Bittern nests on the banks of large and small reservoirs with stagnant water, overgrown with vegetation. This bird leads a very secretive way of life, deftly climbing the reeds, grabbing the stems with tenacious long fingers. It flies not very willingly, only for short distances, very low over thickets or the surface of the water. Active mainly at night. In Europe, it arrives from winter quarters in April - early May, and departs for winter quarters in August-September. Like the great bittern, the little bittern flies to nesting sites and flies away for wintering singly, without forming flocks. Most often it flies at night.

Feeding The Little Bittern feeds on small fish, frogs, tadpoles, and aquatic invertebrates. Sometimes chicks of small passerines are caught. Voice

3.3. reproduction

Spinning tops nest singly or rarely in scattered colonies. Each pair occupies a fairly large nesting area. The nest is arranged in the thick of reeds or in the branches of a tree. The nest of a conical shape after the hatching of the chicks is trampled down and becomes flat. The Little Bittern lays its eggs between the beginning of June and the end of July, depending on the locality and climate. Clutch contains 5-9 white eggs. Both parents incubate and raise the chicks. Already at the age of a few days, the chicks of the Little Bittern deftly climb the reed stalks, grabbing them with long thin fingers. At the age of 7-12 days, the chicks can already leave the nest for a short time. At the age of 1 month, the little bittern chicks are already on the wing.

Bibliography:

1. Boehme R. L., Flint V. E. Five-language dictionary of animal names. Birds. Latin, Russian, English, German, French. / under the general editorship of acad. V. E. Sokolova. - M.: Rus. lang., "RUSSO", 1994. - S. 24. - 2030 copies. - ISBN 5-200-00643-0

Ixobrychus minutus (Linnaeus, 1766)

Order Ciconiiformes - Ciconiiformes

Heron family - Ardeidae

The status of the species in the country and in adjacent regions

The species is listed in the Red Books and protected in the Moscow (category 3), Ryazan (category 3), Kaluga (category 2) and Lipetsk (category 3) regions.

Distribution and abundance

The range covers the center and south of Europe, South Asia, part of Africa and Australia. IN Tula region- a rare breeding species. Distributed mosaically. It gravitates towards reservoirs of anthropogenic origin. The permanent meeting place is the Cherepetskoye Reservoir, where at least three pairs regularly nest. The average number of chicks in broods (according to observations in 2003-2005) is 3.3. Broods stay on islets overgrown with reeds.

Habitats and biology

Inhabits lakes, ponds, river oxbows with dense thickets of reeds, reeds, willows, alders. Migrant. Appears on nesting sites at the end of May. Settles in reed beds or other tall vegetation, in coastal shrubs. The Little Bittern nests on bent stems, less often on the branches of trees and shrubs hanging over the water. Birds can settle in separate pairs or colonially. The clutch usually contains 4-6 eggs. The incubation period is 16-21 days. The chicks leave the nest at the age of about 9 days, after which they actively climb stems and branches in the immediate vicinity. At the age of one month, young bitterns begin to fly and broods break up. The diet of these birds is based on aquatic and semi-aquatic invertebrates, small amphibians and their larvae, and small fish. The prey of the bittern is most often watched over by standing still in shallow water.

Limiting factors and threats

An understudied look. Possible reason rarities - limited habitats suitable for nesting.

Protective measures taken and necessary

The species is listed in Appendix 2 of the Bern Convention, the Red Book of the Tula Region. Further work is required to clarify the distribution and abundance.

Photo

A. P. Levashkin.

Compilers

O. V. Brigadirova.

Information sources

1. Stepanyan, 1990; 2. Shvets et al., 2003a; 3. Brigadirova, 2006

Little bittern - Ixobrichus minutus Linnaeus, 1766

Order Ciconiiformes - Ciconiiformes

Heron family - Ardeidae

Category, status. 3 - rare with a naturally small number of sporadically distributed species. The species is included in the Red Books of Tver and Leningrad regions. It is included in the Red Books of Belarus, the Republic of Latvia and Estonia, and is also included in Appendix I of the EU Directive on the Protection of Rare Birds, Appendix II of the Berne Convention, Appendix II of the Bonn Convention, classified as SPEC 3.

Short description. Very small heron (body length 33-38 cm, weight 130-170 g). The top of the head and back are black, the neck and chest are buffy, the wing is pinkish-yellow with a black tip, the beak and legs are greenish. Young birds are brown with streaks. The flight is quite fast (1).

Range and distribution. The nominative subspecies I. m. lives in the Pskov region. minutus, whose range passes through the whole of Europe (north to the latitude of St. Petersburg), Malaya and Central Asia. Kazakhstan, south Western Siberia; to the south it reaches northwestern India and northern Africa. Information about the nature of the distribution of the species in the Pskov region is fragmentary. Two adult birds were noted in 1957 on a channel of a nameless lake overgrown with willows and reeds in the Plyussky district on the border of the Leningrad and Pskov regions (2). In the nesting period of 1984, the top was noted near the village of Maksyutino, in 1986 on the lake. Hurry, in 1978 on Lake Nishcha. In August 1985-1987. hunters hunted individuals of this species near the lake. Nishcha and on old ponds near the village of Idritsa (3). Recorded in June 1994 in flooded willow forests in the Lovat floodplain downstream from Borisogleb in the Velikoluksky district (4). In 1986, a nest was found on Sebezhskoye Lake, in which tops raised 5 chicks (5). In July 2004, one female was noted on one of the ponds near the village of Fedorovskoye, not far from the village of Loknya (6).

Habitats and features of biology. It nests in thickets of bushes, reeds, cattails and other high above-water vegetation on stagnant water bodies or slowly flowing watercourses: in quarries, on ponds and lakes, at the mouths of rivers. Transit migratory, nesting migratory species in the Pskov region. Arrives in late April - mid-May. It leads a secretive life with twilight and nocturnal activity, however, in nesting places it can be observed during the day, flying over water. Breeds in separate pairs. The clutch contains from 4 to 9 white eggs, which are incubated by both parents for up to three weeks. Chicks rise to the wing at the age of one month. Autumn departure in August - September.

In the diet, animal food - small fish, aquatic invertebrates, amphibians.

The number of species and limiting factors. In the 1970s-1990s, a significant reduction in numbers was noted in many European countries. The main limiting factors are land reclamation, which leads to the complete drying of small shallow water bodies; destruction of high coastal vegetation in the process economic use reservoirs; destruction of nests by terrestrial predators and corvids.

Security measures. Preservation of the species on specially protected natural areas. It is necessary to conduct regular surveys in order to identify the number on the territory of the region, identify nesting sites, and organize their protection.

Information sources:

1. Boehme, 1998; 2. Malchevsky, Pukinsky, 1983; 3. Fetisov et al., 2002; 4. Bardin et al., 1995; 5. Fedorov, 1997, 6. Medvedev, 2005.

Compiled by: E. G. Fedorova.