The elusive Clapper Rail

Rails are birds that are often heard and not seen. They live and hide and feed in the tall marsh grasses. In the spring, however, when they are feeding young, they seem to get more bold. Maybe they just have to get out of their comfort zone to find enough food to feed their large broods! A neat moment during the LOS weekend was seeing a pair of rails (probably King Rails?) try to move their brood of 10 chicks across the road! We stopped the car in the lane (it was not a busy road, thank goodness!) to watch them cross. One of the adults crossed, and a few of the chicks and then suddenly there was a car coming the opposite direction! The car didn't even slow down, but amazingly did not make pancakes out of any of the chicks. They all scurried back across where they came from though. It was a wonderful sight...and me without my camera!!!!

Here are some videos of Clapper Rails

Feeding young'uns (watch closely at the end for the fuzzy black chick!)

Why did the Clapper Rail cross the road?