Thin as a Rail

Sora

I have recently been watching a few Sora delicately picking off small invertebrates from cattail stalks along the edge of the freshwater impoundment at my regular birding site, John Heinz NWR in Philadelphia.

Sora, along with American Coot, Common Gallinule and Virginia Rail to name but a few, belong the rail family. While coots and gallinules are likely to be seen in open water, rails tend to be far more secretive lurking amongst thicker emergent vegetation.

Sora are the most common and widely distributed of North America’s rails but you will need patience to see one as you scan the edge of a marsh for a sighting.  Being ground foragers, these 8” birds remind me of a small chicken with their cocked tail and slow deliberate walk, as they scour the marsh floor, never venturing too far out into the open mudflats. At the first sign of danger they quickly run into the vegetation and out of sight.

While the idiom ‘thin as rail’ means skinny like a fence rail, it could easily apply to these birds who are able to compress themselves, and slip away between narrow stalks, and vanish without a trace.

– Adrian Binns