[NatureNS] Possible least bittern, what to do

Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:26:50 -0400
From: Joan Czapalay <joancz@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
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Least Bittern is a very interesting vagrant, Steve. I was once given a live, 
but very tired, Least Bittern in the late 1980's. I took it to a marshy area 
by the water near Temple Church in Barrington. After taking several pictures 
we released it, and it flew off well. I sent the pictures to Ian McLaren, 
and one was published in NS birds (probably 1989?). This bird had landed on 
a fishing boat between Seal Island and Cape Sable Island. The only one I 
have seen since then was the one that stayed for some time in the Little 
Pond on Brier Island a few years ago.
I do believe it is illegal to keep or offer dead birds except for the 
Museum, but I am sure others will address that. Cheers, Joan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Shaw" <srshaw@dal.ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 2:24 AM
Subject: [NatureNS] Possible least bittern, what to do


> Question for birders in these slow times: we are not seeing much of 
> anything
> except squirrels, at our feeders at Halifax.
>  Over Xmas, we visited the family of a friend of my daughter's near 
> Hubbards.
> The friend's mum told me that earlier she had accidentally killed an 
> unusual
> bird back in May while driving along highway 3 near a tidal salt marsh 
> area,
> close to Boutiliers Point, approx 7200 section.  The bird seemed to be 
> behaving
> oddly, fluttering around, as she drove by and that it suddenly shot in 
> front of
> her car and she had no chance to avoid it.  She stopped and took the dead 
> bird
> home and reckoned that it best fit the description of a least bittern,
> according their Audubon bird guide.  When I got home I looked this up on 
> the
> Sibley maps and it seems that a least bittern would be only a vagrant this 
> far
> north, but it's not clear (to me) if that makes it exceedingly rare and a
> really interesting find, or merely rather irregular and of no major 
> interest to
> birders.  The point is that that the corpse still exists -- she preserved 
> it in
> her freezer. Her question to me was what to do with it, usefully.
>  I commented that it might be useful first to ask people on this network 
> (1)
> whether a possible least bittern is sufficiently interesting to get 
> someone
> competent to check the ID, somehow; (2) is a frozen, dead (possible) least
> bittern useful for anyone to have a present of -- e.g. I recall that Randy 
> Lauf
> once collected specimens for an intro biology class at StFX. (May 2006 
> probably
> means past the due date for a bittern stew).
>  The description I have is that "it is soft black on the back and rich 
> golden
> brown on the front and has yellow legs".  Didn't see it myself.
>  She's just got back to me and suggested that she could photo the corpse, 
> and I
> guess I could put up the resulting photo on the Flickr site for 
> inspection. Before going to this bother, I'd like to know if it is a 
> sufficiently
> interesting bird to make this worthwhile.  Anyone have suggestions or 
> comments?
> Steve (Halifax)
>
>
> -- 
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