on the rails

It gets easier and easier to get down to the water before dawn and, if the tide isn't too high, I put on my boots and venture out into the marsh. The Spartina alterniflora (the main marsh grass) is pretty high this year but there is a medium mud path that takes me out to the middle where there is a substantial piece of flotsam -- a solid wood board -- that offers me both a secure footing and enough height to peer into the open area. When the tide is completely out, this area is nothing but mud but at 7 am this morning it was covered with a few inches of water and nary a bird. I turned and retreated back out and immediately there was a distinct rail call coming from the spot. Although I was quite sure that the bird calling was a Clapper Rail, the sun was still behind a thick band of clouds on the eastern horizon -- a good moment for rails but not necessarily for much else. So I turned around and worked my way back to the board. The Clapper had indeed emerged in all its morning grayness (it comes out at this spot almost every morning) and there was plenty of light to watch it dipping around in the water and mud on one side of the marsh pond. Then it took off and flew to the other side, splashing down and even swimming a bit; then, at the near edge, it started to work its way along the side coming almost straight towards me.

Having a good close-up view of a Clapper Rail is a notable event in itself but suddenly I caught another movement on the opposite side of the marsh pond. Emerging from the reeds out into the open was a smaller rail with a black mask setting off a bright yellow conical bill, wavy stripes or bars underneath, streaked and spotted above, short tail slightly stuck up showing a white rear end: in short, a SORA RAIL in adult plumage. I've seen Sora here a couple of times before but always as a fast-moving air-borne silhouette. Altogether I've now seen four of the five North American rail species on the marsh; the missing species is Black Rail which breeds further west on Long Island but has very little population north of us.

Eric Salzman