Hi all,

  I am a bit hesitant to post this as I am a relatively new birder,
but today as I walked along the RFK access trail from Barney
Circle to the stadium and Kingman Lake, I believe I heard a
VIRGINIA RAIL.  I heard the sounds coming from a large
brushy watery ditch between the trail and the railroad tracks
along the M street waterfront.  The bird had a relatively loud call
consisting of repeated double "ki-dik" sounds (with occasional
interspersed single chirps) that went on for several minutes.
When I walked toward the edge of the woods closer to the bird,
the source of the sound moved a bit before becoming quiet.  A I
waited a little longer, the sounds changed to a small series of chattery
sqwauks before they stopped.  The ki-dik sound was very similar
to the sound labeled "very sexy sound" at
http://www.naturesongs.com/falcstri.html, but was a very long string
of almost all double notes with very few interspersed single notes.
The sqwauking sound was very close the the sound labeled
"another Virginia Rail sound" at the same web site.

If not a rail, any ideas as to what bird this may have been?

 Best,

    -Wayne Baumgartner
      Washington, DC