Hi Ross,

I am no expert on rails, and I am not working from my home.  So, my
resources are limited here.  The only other person that I know of who saw
the bird mentioned it to me this morning.  She knew it was unusual, but is
not a birder, so all she could do is verify my estimate of its size.  She
apparently saw it shortly after I did, so it must have walked back to the
ditch once I left the area.  I looked for it again this morning, but did not
see it.  The only functioning camera here is a pocket digital.  Even if it I
see the bird again, unless it poses as close as I got to it yesterday, the
pictures would probably be marginal.  However, I now know what filed marks I
really need to see (the "large rusty wing patch").

With respect to ruling-out other rails:  It appeared to be too large to be a
Yellow Rail.  It did not look in shape or color like any of the
illustrations of adult or immature Sora Rails in the bird books that are
available to me here.  However, the illustrations of both the immature Sora
and the Crake are quite varied in the various bird books that my Mother has
here.    And, so are the length figures.

The bird that I saw was mostly a buffy color, with a very distinct but not
very high contrast pattern of darker centers and lighter borders on the back
feathers.  The belly feathers were much paler, and the vertical streaking
near the back of the belly was very muted and more like buff-on-white than
black-on-buff or black-on-white.  The beak was not a very noticeable color
or shape - pale tan and not shaped like a chicken's.  There were no
distincitve eye stripes, head color patches or wing bars.  Apparently, what
would have clinched the identification is the "large rusty wing patch" that
is shown conspicuously on all of the illustrations of a Crake and mentioned
in all of the write-ups.  However, I did not know that when I happened upon
the bird, so I was not concentrating on evaluating that particular feature.
There was some solid tan/brown between the back pattern and the belly, but I
don't remember it being such an obvious red-rust color as depicted in the
book illustrations.

If somebody could give me links to actual pictures of Crakes and immature
Soras, I might gain some more confidence about the identification.  But, at
this point, the immature Sora is just a nagging doubt in my mind because I
don't really know what they can look like within their range of variability.
Dendroica dose not seem to have photos of Soras nor Crakes.

One additional factor is the location of the sighting,
which is on the margin of a large agricultural field, a few hundred yards
from the nearest salt marsh.  My understasnding is that Crakes prefer fields
and Soras prefer marshes.  But, maybe not all of each species has "read that
book."

Steve


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ross Geredien" <>
To: "Steve Long" <>
Cc: <>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Corn Crake


> Hi Steve and everyone,
> Corn Crake would truly be a mega-rarity. Do you have any additional
> documentation? Were all other rails ruled out? Has anyone else tried to
> verify this?
>
> Ross Geredien
> Edgewater
>
> Sent from my iPhone

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