Dear all: After birding the morning at Leesylvania with Ben Jesup and crew (I
expect Ben will report our sightings), I headed over to Julie Metz with Jason
Waanders. While heading along the narrow boardwalk to the hide at the west end
of the wetland, a king rail (lifer for me) flew out of the marsh from about 2
feet away. It flushed and sort of hovered for a moment (although that could
just have been my perception slowing time down because I was stunned at what I
was seeing) and flew across the boardwalk into heavy cover never to be seen
again. I got a wonderful look at it (enough to note its very long bill, which
was not bright red, and its overall size to eliminate Virginia rail). I don't
think clapper rails occur this far up the Potomac, but in any case, this bird
seemed much to darkly and vividly colored to be a clapper. We later heard
another king rail calling from the marsh at the far east end of the wetland
bank. It was calling very close to the trail but remained invisible. The
"check" notes sounded out about once or twice per second and sped up a little
and got slightly louder towards the middle of the series. I believe this is
consistent with king rails. Other notables at Julie Metz were several
thrashers, four great egrets, lots of parulas and gnatcatchers, a couple of
yellow-rumpeds, about a dozen yellowthroats, a handful of swamp sparrows,
eastern phoebe, white-eyed vireo, greater yellowlegs, flyover common loons and
tundra swan, and at least a dozen wood ducks, and a fox sparrow seen by another
birder. Enjoy the great birds out there this weekend, Philip Kline
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