With a couple of years birding already under my belt, I usually aim for better shots of species I've previously encountered or targeted when I return to a favorite birding site. While summer tanagers and blue grosbeaks were in my dreams on my return to Prescott's Watson Lake this weekend, I was excited to see instead my very first sora.
It's a bird that's never been on my radar, a member of a genus of waterbirds know as rails. Part of a larger family of birds including gallinules and coots, I only heard of the rail rather late in my birding adventure. In fact, I spotted him not too far from a flock of mallards, initially thinking that he was one of their ducklings. But he stayed to himself in the shallow lake's grasses, flitting from clump to clump while flicking his tail feathers in the air.
While the sora is the most widespread of North America's rails, it is no wonder he wasn't on my short list as he tends to stay hidden in thick grasses, venturing out mostly in the early morning or late in the evening in search of food. The individual I found was a juvenile, so maybe he hasn't yet learned his species' best habits. But with his distinctive candy-corn colored bill and stubby, cocked white tail, he was nevertheless on the way to becoming a full grown sora.
It's a bird that's never been on my radar, a member of a genus of waterbirds know as rails. Part of a larger family of birds including gallinules and coots, I only heard of the rail rather late in my birding adventure. In fact, I spotted him not too far from a flock of mallards, initially thinking that he was one of their ducklings. But he stayed to himself in the shallow lake's grasses, flitting from clump to clump while flicking his tail feathers in the air.
While the sora is the most widespread of North America's rails, it is no wonder he wasn't on my short list as he tends to stay hidden in thick grasses, venturing out mostly in the early morning or late in the evening in search of food. The individual I found was a juvenile, so maybe he hasn't yet learned his species' best habits. But with his distinctive candy-corn colored bill and stubby, cocked white tail, he was nevertheless on the way to becoming a full grown sora.
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