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Inland Black Rails
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Inland Black Rails
- From: "Frank Enders" <fkenders@hotmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 10:12:34 EDT
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Eric Dean says talk about them and they will come.
I can't make it so short and sweet.
How come there are old, inland breeding records for Black Rails at Clemson,
Raleigh, and Roanoke (near Blacksburg)? Do wildlife students talk that
much? Or pray that much?
We today have more Carolina birders, and fewer Carolina marshes. Do we talk
less, or pray less?
In Pennsylvania, there are apparently two inland records, both in small
marshes, one a wet cow pasture and the other a beaverpond. I think those
were found during the Breeding Bird Atlas.
I think our own Breeding Bird Atlases found no inland Black Rails. But, a
few years ago, Paul Sykes stumbled across Black Rails at one of his favorite
birding sites near Athens, Georgia, in a complex of beaverponds.
In northern California, Tecklin, Aigner and Koehler in 1994 also stumbled
across Black Rails in marshes which were very small (1-7 acres), 60 miles
inland from known breeding sites. The inland sites were seepages from
irrigation and the edges of streams; lightly grazed oak parkland.
The birds called spontaneously once in June, and again in August, during
passerine surveys; then, tape playbacks revealed maybe ten times the number
of rails in various sites checked nearby, over the next several months and
years. The sites had fairly stable water levels, maybe 1-2 inches deep,
mostly dense cattails, some sites mixed sedge and rush.
I found it interesting that most of the sites were quite different (dense
cattail) in appearance and plant species than the usual coastal sites in
California. So too, maybe inland Carolina places with Black Rails will be
different from the short grass at the upper end of salt marshes where we
usually find this species.
Who knows of dense cattail or realluy wet grass, as little as an acre, where
one could talk about Black Rails?
And, since these birds are less visible in flight (and nocturnal migrants)
than Wood Storks, how about talking to the rails, near dawn or near dusk,
instead of about them?
I personally am getting pretty frustrated by my inability to locate even a
single marsh suitable for Black Rails within 20 miles of my home. But, I am
wiling to bet that among all the birders reading Carolinabirds, we have a
few inland marshes with Black Rails calling in May, June and even July,
within 20 miles of our homes.
I figure wet cowpastures will be grazed more lightly as our society tries to
keep nutrients out of streams. This should favor finding rails. On the
other hand, so many beaverponds are back in the woods, where suitable rail
habitat may exist for a few years and never be known to birders!
[What I really hope for is tertiary treatment of sewage outflows, using made
marshes. That would only be fair, considering how much marshland has been
destroyed.
Maybe birders should lobby for sewage treatment plants to include downstream
wetlands to cleanse the water. The Goldsboro plant, for example, seems to
be going in exactly the wrong direction, expanding the more intensive
initial treatment of its wastes, rather than trying to expand the more
extensive, downstream wetland treatment of its outflows.
The model I am thinking about--and know only from reading and radio-- is the
Arcata, California wetland which treats sewage water by using marshland,
which is quite productive of birds; Roanoke Rapids, here, which also treats
Weldon's sewge, states the land for such marshes would be too expensive.
Again, I am getting pretty frustrated at the lack of marshes. Maybe some
other birders know how to be more effective at inducing change in sewage
treatment, such that we could support higher populations of marshbirds (and
definitely cleaner water). I see sewage-treatment marshes as a way to have
parks for recreation (done in California--jogging, etc.) and really clean
sewage outflows, beside habitat for wildlife.]
Talk about marshes. Maybe they will come.
Talk about rails. But, maybe we should pray.
Some people say we should be careful about what we pray for, or even talk
about!
Frank Enders, Halifax NC. fkenders@hotmail.com
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