Fellow Birders,
The following is a note received from Barry Truitt of the The Nature
Conservancy's Virginia Coast Reserve. This sighting occurred on Saturday,
November 13.
I mentioned to Bryan Watts Sat nite that I had observed a yellow rail Sat morn
in the flooded high marsh adjacent to the state road leading to Box Tree dock
and he thought that it should be documented because of the rarity of sightings.
It was on the bottom branch of a flooded red cedar tree and flew, when flushed,
about 20 yards to another red cedar adjacent the road. When flushed from this
red cedar, it flew across the road and landed on the edge of the woods/brush
and quickly ran into the underbrush. On both flushes, the short bill, small
size, and short tail were evident, as was the quite obvious white secondaries.
I left and consulted Sibley at home and returned to the marsh about 30 minutes
later. I again flushed the yellow rail from one of the red cedars and observed
it flying again into the edge of the woods across the road.
Tides were about 1.5 feet above normal because of north winds and new moon and
most of the adjacent high marsh was completely flooded.
Bill Williams
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