Doug Ray saw a SORA at the wetland near the baseball fields
on Wahanna Rd. in Seaside over the weekend and I have seen
or heard more than the usual number of SORAs at the Airport
Mitigation Bank on Youngs Bay.

With Christmas Counts coming up in a week, I thought some
discussion on winter rail observation might be in order.

Both SORA and VIRGINIA RAIL over winter, though numbers of
Virginia Rails greatly exceed those of Sora. Typical habitats
include cattail marshes, but often extend into flooded willow
breaks, rank grassy areas, drainage ditches and even scrubby
backyards. A participant of our monthly Youngs Bay outings
told of a Virginia Rail that regularly appeared in her yard
to eat cracked corn. We saw a Virginia Rail at one of the
sparrow chumming spots at the mitigation bank last January.

I'm intrigued by the prospect of chumming for rails and
will be spreading cracked corn around in likely spots just
to see what happens.

Rails are not any less secretive in the winter than in the
summer and will more probably be seen than heard.

Virginia Rails regularly make the "raga raga raga" call in
the winter; gunshots, pishing, loud hand clapping or a small
child singing "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree" will set
them off. They will occasionally do the "ticka ticka" call
though I generally don't start hearing this until February.
They also have a scream call that isn't on any bird song tape.
It's a squeaky clammer: what one might imagine a Virginia Rail
saying if it just stubbed its toe.

Soras very rarely do the call on the bird tape in the winter.
Instead they scream. If you listen to the typical summer
"beeyoo-eek, beeyoo-eek, you you you you you" the most common
scream note sounds close to the "eek" part though screechier.
It makes me think of a small mammal screaming. I've actually
watched Soras make this noise. They stretch their neck out
like a chicken, "eeeick!". There are several variations usually
in one or two note phrases. That's the key to sorting Sora
screams from Virginia Rail screams. Soras are more likely to
scream and when they do they sound like frightened or surprised
small mammals; Virginias sound like angry small mammals.

Without getting into the whole ethical thing about using
tapes to draw out birds, Virgina Rails will answer to tape
recordings and I've had about equal success with Virginia
Rail using a Sora tape. Winter Soras will rarely answer a tape,
but they will come check it out. More than once I've played
the tape to no apparent effect only to turn around and see
a Sora standing behind me watching intently.

--
Mike Patterson Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo,
Astoria, OR it is not enough to be persecuted
celata at pacifier.com by an unkind establishment,
you must also be right.
---Robert Park
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html