Clive Harris wrote:

>We turned round and walked along the cross-dike to look for frogs.  50 yards down the turn from the main dike the boys flushed a bird out from the left handside of the dike - another Sora they thought but I got a great look at a really bright Virginia Rail (almost a coral red bill on it).  Unfortunately this was a bit skittish and disappeared off into the wooded swamp.
>

I reported previously on MDOsprey that I had a brief look at a Sora on 
4/12 at Hughes Hollow.  "Brief" being defined as about 4-5 seconds 
"bare" eyed from about 12 feet away (there was no time to get binos on 
the bird before it went back under the bushes).  The one thing that has 
been troubling me since than is that I had the distinct impression that 
the bird had an orange bill and not yellow.  I didn't have time to 
concentrate on shape.  Maybe I saw the Virginia Rail and not the Sora.  
Sorry for a misleading report.  I will be more careful in the future.  
All I can say at this point is that I saw a rail species of some sort at 
Hughes Hollow on 4/12.

Andy Martin
Gaithersburg