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Sora

Porzana carolinaOrder: GRUIFORMESFamily: Rails and Coots (Rallidae)

Sora Portrait
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General

Sora: Small rail with dark gray-brown upperparts with black-and-white streaks. Breast is gray and flanks and belly are dark gray with white bars. Gray head has a darker crown and nape, and black face, chin, and throat. Bill is yellow with dark tip. Sexes are similar. Winter adult and juvenile are browner and have pale throats.

Range and Habitat

Sora: Breeds from southeastern Alaska, east to Newfoundland, and south locally to northwestern Baja California, southern New Mexico, eastern Colorado, southern Missouri, central Ohio, and Maryland. Spends winters regularly from central California, east to southern Texas and the Gulf Coast, and south through Central America to portions of South America. Preferred habitats include freshwater marshes, flooded fields, swamps, and slough borders.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"dee", "ner-wee"

Interesting Facts

  • The Sora is the most common and widely distributed rail in North America. It is sometimes also referred to as the Sora Rail or Sora Crake.
  • Although shot in large numbers every year, their high reproductive rate enables them to maintain a stable population.
  • Their greatest threat is the destruction of the freshwater marshes where they breed: they have consequently become scarce in heavily populated areas.
  • A group of soras are collectively known as an "ache", "expression", and "whinny" of soras.


Author

Gary Owen Dick

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Range Map for Sora
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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.
Family
Species Porzana carolina
Length8 - 10 Inches
Wingspan13.25 Inches

Sora

Sora: Small rail with dark gray-brown upperparts with black-and-white streaks. Breast is gray and flanks and belly are dark gray with white bars. Gray head has a darker crown and nape, and black face, chin, and throat. Bill is yellow with dark tip. Low, weak, and floppy flight over short distances.

● Song: "dee", "ner-wee"

● Foraging & Feeding: Sora: Diet consists of mollusks, insects, snails, seeds of marsh plants, and duckweed. Snails and insects are picked from the ground and vegetation, or caught by probing soft mud with its bill.

● Breeding & nesting: Sora: Ten to twelve buff eggs with brown and gray blotches are laid in a shallow basket of cattails, dry leaves, grass, and reeds, and attached to stalks of dense, living vegetation; nest is usually built over or adjacent to water. Both parents incubate the eggs for 18 to 20 days.

● Similar species: Sora: Adult is unmistakable; Yellow Rail is much smaller, shows white wing patch in flight, and is grayer overall than juvenile Sora.

Flight Pattern

Weak labored floppy flight for short distances and low over vegetation with legs dangling.
Sora Body Illustration
● Range & Habitat: Sora: Breeds from southeastern Alaska, east to Newfoundland, and south locally to northwestern Baja California, southern New Mexico, eastern Colorado, southern Missouri, central Ohio, and Maryland. Spends winters regularly from central California, east to southern Texas and the Gulf Coast, and south through Central America to portions of South America. Preferred habitats include freshwater marshes, flooded fields, swamps, and slough borders.
BreedingMonogamous
Population
MigrationMigratory
Weight2.6 Ounces