June 2nd. 2011. I have only knowingly seen one living Least Bittern, it was at Long Point on Lake Erie many years ago. It’s quite possible that I’ve been very close to more, they’re so hard to spot and very elusive. Five or six years ago I found a dead one alongside a busy road that bisects a large cattail marsh not far from home. I took the time to admire it closely for Least Bitterns are very handsome birds. But admiring a dead bird is a bittersweet experience. It makes me wonder about our ancestors’ fascination with bird taxidermy, all those glass cases of birds caught in suspended action, their eyes never quite right, either deadly flat or overly bright.
Anyway… that was then and this is now. In late May I was told that Least Bitterns and American Bitterns were to be seen and heard over that same large marsh where I found the road kill some years ago. I spent an hour or two hours walking the length of the busy road looking and listening. The road is heavily used, probably not more than a minute goes by without a car or truck passing. The problem with the vehicle traffic, apart from near death experiences, is the noise. From a mile away the hum of car or truck gets in the way of listening closely for birds, and of course as it approaches the noise pollution only gets worse.
Somehow the birds seem not to mind. At this time of the year they’re busy staking out territory or finding a mate, so seeing birds was not a problem. Not the birds I’d come seeking, but Sora, Virginia Rails, Marsh Wrens, Green Herons and Great Blue Herons were easy to find and I even suspected a Red-headed Woodpecker calling in the surrounding forest.
I consider hearing a bird to be the equal of seeing it, so I was thrilled to identify the calls of Least Bitterns from three or four locations deep in the marsh. They call softly, but persistently, it’s best described as a muted ‘poo-poo-poo, poo-poo-poo, poo-poo-poo.”. , These singing Least Bitterns made my day. The call of its congener the American Bittern is weird, it’s hard to find a better adjective and I won’t attempt to characterize it, better you Google it and listen to someone’s recording.
Either Bittern (American or Least) is a wonderful sighting. They are both secretive and both are threatened by humankind’s practices of destroying their marsh habitat. In our more ignorant days marshes were seen either as opportunities to drain and cultivate, or backfill to eliminate the nighttime miasmas that caused diseases such as typhus, smallpox, cholera and apoplexy (whatever that was).