Two Northampton County "Biggies" in One Day ~ July 27, 2022

As I was getting ready to head for Lake Minsi to try and find the Least Bittern that was reported there, I found out from Jason Horn that he thought there might be two birds there but couldn't be sure. He also told me that he had spotted a Little Blue Heron at the Van Buren Road retention pond. I stopped there on the way up to the lake and found the bird fairly easily. I got some nice shots of it as it flew right past me.

Little Blue Heron

At Lake Minsi, I parked at the west lot and walked out the paved walkway that leads to the dam. Right after passing the picnic tables, I stopped and started scanning the cattails lining the southern edge of the lake. After about fifteen minutes, the Least Bittern flew out from the cattails and headed for the other section of cattails that are in the extreme southwest corner of the lake near the Purple Martin houses. The distant flight photos I got of it showed that it had a rusty-colored back, making it a female.

Female Least Bittern

About a half-hour later, the bird flew back over to the cattail patch near me. But was it the same bird?

Least Bittern

A while later, a Least Bittern returned to the other cattail patch and, again, I was lucky to get some distant flight photos of it. When I checked the photos on the camera screen, I realized that this one had the black back of a male! This confirmed Jason's suspicions that there was a pair(!) of Least Bitterns there. We can only hope that they have a successfully nesting.

Male Least Bittern

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UPDATE on 8/2: Jeff Vinosky saw two young birds with the adults on August 2nd, and actually got a photo of one of the young! To my knowledge, this is the first confirmed breeding record of Least Bittern for Northampton County.

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