This afternoon?I finally got a?momentary?look?at the?elusive Virginia rail of the Edmonds marsh.?? I was beginning to think this bird was just?a local?urban legend created?to attract tourists, on par with Sasquatch and Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. ??


Several of us heard the aperiodic calls of the rail as it worked its way back and forth (north-south) in the patch of cattails in front ot the main viewing platform.? I saw it from the boardwalk for about two seconds as it immerged from a hole in the mass of standing cattails?into a clearing?of flattened cattails. ?It retreated back into the cattails as I raised my camera to photograph it.? I now felt like the many frustrated photographers of Sasquatch and Nessie who came oh so close to documenting the actual existence of a creature?which has existed only in native folklore and the minds of the true believers.

The rail emiited infrequent calls as it worked its way back south, then east parallel to the walkway.?? There was an area of open grass and mud that?it had to cross where I might have photographed it if I had known its direction of travel, but its calls?were too infrequent to predict?which direction it was walking.

Bill Anderson; Edmonds, WA. USA