Sora

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