I carpooled down with Paul P last night and conditions were exceptionally good, you could hear everything!  I dipped on the YERA, but Paul heard one rail vocalization that may have been a YERA.  He was hoping to confirm but as others said, he heard it just before a vehicle arrived, and as we listened for a second note or call, a vehicle arrived and the bird did not call again.  Paul said he heard part of a patterned call but it was very brief.  Part of the challenge was filtering out the numerous Clapper and VA rail tick notes, which were fairly constant.

The marsh seemed saturated with Clapper Rails, and also had many Virginias.  Both species called nearly the entire time, but the vast majority of vocalizations were simply tick notes.  Based purely on calls, I would guess the Clappers out-numbered the VA's by at least 3 or 4:1.  We also heard 2 Sora and 1 Black Rail!  This was a great consolation - I was highly impressed to get 4 rail species in one spot.  The Black made only two calls, about 20 seconds apart and that was it - I think most folks missed it.  Not sure if it was shy or just quiet.  There were 6 cars present, althouhg all people present were very quiet, and friendly.  The bird was not close to our location.  As for the Soras, there was one on each side, about 1/4 mile apart.  Both Sora only made a couple short whinny calls, coupled with one or two notes.

Other birds heard:

Royal Tern 1 or 2
Forster's Tern 1
Common Loon 1
Marsh Wren  many
Seaside Sparrow 1
Saltmarsh Sharptail Sparrow 1
Willet 2+
Greater Yellowlegs 2
Ring-billed Gull  many
Canada Goose  small flock
Mallard 1+?
Gadwall (not sure, probable 1)
Great Blue Heron 1
Other wader (Unid'd; I did not think it was a night-heron)
occasional passerines passed overhead, but I don't know flight call notes

It is a great first visit.  What a beautiful marsh ... I would love to see it in the daylight!

Cheers!
Jeff Shenot
Croom MD