Mystery Bird: Clapper Rail, Rallus longirostris
SUMMARY: There’s no doubt about it, this North American Mystery Bird species is challenging to identify, but I am giving it to you anyway because (1) I have a bird feet fetish and (2) I love reading your discussions about how you arrive at your IDs (and I am curious to see what you decide this species is using very limited data).
tags: Clapper Rail, Rallus longirostris, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Clapper Rail, Rallus longirostris, photographed Smith Point, Chambers County, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you in 48 hours]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 18 June 2010 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/320s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
There’s no doubt about it, this North American Mystery Bird species is challenging to identify, but I am giving it to you anyway because (1) I have a bird feet fetish and (2) I love reading your discussions about how you arrive at your IDs (and I am curious to see what you decide this species is using very limited data).
Review all mystery birds to date.
A note to my readers: the daily Mystery Birds will continue to publish here through 11 September 2010. On that day, I plan to begin publishing them on my new blog, Punctuated Equilibrium, hosted by the science pages at The Guardian. The Guardian’s environment editor is very excited to share their material with us, so big and exciting changes are coming soon to the daily Mystery Birds!
Guess I’ll start things off here. We can’t see much, but wings, tail and legs can be very useful. The wings are short (they barely reach the base of the tail) and rounded — the longest primary is several feathers back from the tip of the wing. The tail is very short. Adds up to a bird that doesn’t fly much. The legs are not too long, but quite stout, as are the feet. There is no webbing. The hind toe is quite small. Put it all together and this appears to be a bird that spends most of it’s time on the ground.
I’ll leave anything else for later. Have fun!
I’m stumped. It is hard to estimate size based on the picture. I thought it might be a night heron (juvenile) of some type but their striping tends to be vertical rather than horizontal(?). If the bird is smaller than it appears my next guess would be one of the rails (perhaps also juvenile??)—I don’t have bird books with me and am flipping through the online version of Dendroica (and Google) trying to find pics that may yield clues.
I think I’d guess King or Clapper Rail (juvenile or worn adult plumage????), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some other species found only on the US-Mexico border.
since paul hasn’t popped in to provide his insightful commentary, i’ll confirm your excellent guess, kevan: it is a rail. i’ll let you and your colleagues think about the specific ID a little longer while i return home before i demystify this bird (i’ll be on the train all day long).
Kevin, in this case we don’t have to worry about those weird and wonderful border specialties. First, there isn’t a border rail, (at least normally, I think there may be one or two records of something odd), and second, Smith’s Point is just north of Galveston, east of Houston. Also, Smith’s Point is on a barrier island, which pretty much means salt water in both directions.
Thought this was some kind of heron until
Limited data!: that’s a quiz understatement! I hastened to Sibley where I found 2 large rails: and one prefers freshwater marsh, and the other SALTWATER. (Thanks, Paul, for locating Smith’s Point—Mr. Kennedy has taken a lot of photos there!)
Thanks for the hints/answers Grrl, Paul. I will go with Clapper Rail (common in salt marshes apparently) because according to the NG Field Guide (Eastern) the feathers have greyish edging while the King has buffy edges. This applies only to the upper parts it seems, but since this bird pic above has greyish edges on its wing I may as well guess Clapper.
Of course, it could be a King x Clapper….