Virginia RailI had another opportunitity to go out with Jeff today. This time we had a special guest: my father over from Australia! We first went to Rollins Savanna, which has been very good to us in terms of uncommon and rare birds. Of the birds listed as uncommon, we saw this Virginia Rail, which came out just long enough for me to snap this photo of it.The Virginia Rail is a bird far more often heard than seen and even though I got a good view of it, not all of us today did. We also saw several Sora rails today throughout the swampy area in Rollins Savanna including one that sat on top of some reeds for some time while we watched!
The Virginia Rail and Sora are by far the most likely rails to be see in Illinois, although others like the King Rail are present but rare and the Yellow and Black Rails are extirpated. The Virginia Rail adult has a long, slightly downcurved red bill as can be seen here, while the Sora has a short, yellow bill.
2 comments:
Good to see ALan made it there OK. Before he left we said we look forward to some Fletcher Snr photos on the Illinois blog.
From Tassie
Thanks John. Yes, he did make it safely here and was standing very close to me when I took this picture of the rail. Actually, he got closer than I did but wasn't in a position to take a photo.
I'm sure it won't be long before you see a Fletcher Snr picture on my blog.
Hope all is well in Tassie!
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