How to Identify aSora
Porzana carolina · 7.5–9.8 in (19–25 cm)
Male vs. female
Male
Gray face and chest, brown streaked back, black patch around a short candy-yellow bill, and barred flanks. Sexes look alike.
Female
Like the male but with a smaller, duller black face patch.
Male photo: Elaine R. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com / Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Second photo: Mike Baird from Morro Bay, USA / Wikimedia, CC BY 2.0
Field marks
- Short thick yellow bill, unlike any other rail
- Black mask and throat on adults
- White undertail flicked constantly
- Very long green toes for walking on floating plants
Similar species
What it sounds like
A clear descending whinny that falls away like a laugh, and a rising "ker-wee" whistle.
Behaviour that gives it away
Far more often heard than seen, and will answer a hand clap with its whinny — the standard way birders confirm one is present.
Habitat & range
Freshwater marshes with cattails, sedges and shallow water.
When you'll see it
Depending on where in North America you are, it is a summer visitor that arrives to breed and a passage migrant, seen mainly in spring and autumn.
What it eats
Seeds, especially of smartweed and sedges, plus aquatic insects and snails.
Did you know?
Its body is narrow enough to slip between dense reed stems, which is the origin of the phrase "thin as a rail".
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