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Yellow Rail

Coturnicops noveboracensisOrder: GRUIFORMESFamily: Rails and Coots (Rallidae)
Yellow Rail Head Illustration_2

Head

  • Bill Shape: All-purpose
  • Eye Color: Brown to reddish brown or yellow-brown.
  • Head Pattern: Eyeline, Capped, Striped, Streaked
  • Crown Color: Dark Brown
  • Forehead Color: Dark Brown
  • Nape Color: Pale brown with white streaks.
  • Throat Color: Buff
  • Cere color: No Data
Yellow Rail Body Illustration_2

Body

  • Length Range: 15-18 cm (6-7.25 in)
  • Weight: 51 g (1.8 oz)
  • Size: Size 2. Small (5 - 9 in)
  • Color: White, Brown, Black, Yellow, Buff
  • Underparts: BUFF
  • Upperparts: Dark brown streaks with fine white lines.
  • Back Pattern: Striped or streaked, Scaled or Scalloped
  • Belly Pattern: Solid
  • Breast Pattern: Solid
No Flight Illustration

Flight

  • Flight Pattern: Weak fluttering flights of short duration.
  • Wingspan Range: 25-33 cm (10-13 in)
  • Wing Shape: Pointed-Wings
  • Tail Shape: Pointed Tail
  • Tail Pattern: Streaked
  • Upper Tail: Brown
  • Under Tail: Brown
  • Leg Color: Yellow
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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 Rail (Rallidae)_blue
Species Coturnicops noveboracensis
Length6 - 7.25 Inches
Wingspan11.5 Inches

Yellow Rail

Yellow Rail: Small rail with pale yellow-striped, dark brown upperparts. White throat, buff breast, flanks, and belly are barred black-and-white. Head has buff face with dark brown cap, eye patches. Bill is short, yellow. Wings are dark with large white patches visible in flight. Short black tail.

● Song: "tic-tic, tictictic, tic-tic tictictic"

● Foraging & Feeding: Yellow Rail: Diet includes snails, beetles, grasshoppers, aquatic bugs, dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, spiders, crayfish, slugs, leeches, tadpoles, small fish, arrowhead, smartweed, pondweed, bur reed, bristle grass, wheat, oats, bulrush, grass, and spikerush.

● Breeding & nesting: Yellow Rail: Seven to ten creamy buff eggs, sometimes spotted with red brown, are laid in a woven cup nest of dead grasses built above the water, typically on a tussock. Incubation ranges from 16 to 18 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Yellow Rail: Immature Sora is much larger, has bright yellow bill, white undertail coverts, and darker upperparts spotted with white.

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flights of short duration.
Yellow Rail Body Illustration_2
● Range & Habitat: Yellow Rail: Breeds from the Maritime Provinces westward to Alberta and the southern part of the Northwest Territories, northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oregon. Migrates along the Atlantic coast to South Carolina and Florida, spending winters along the entire Gulf Coast, from Florida to south Texas. Breeding grounds include large, wet meadows or shallow marshes with sedges and grasses. Winters on salt marshes, rice fields, and damp meadows.
BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester
PopulationUncommon to rare
MigrationMigratory
Weight1.8 Ounces