Bird of the Week

This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the sora. In summer, this wetland bird nests in freshwater marshes with cattails, sedges and rushes across most northern and central areas of the United States and Canada. It shares this habitat with other, more visible wetland specialists, including common yellowthroats, marsh wrens, nesting red-winged blackbirds, cinnamon teal and yellow-headed blackbirds. Although its secretive nature makes it difficult to spot, the sora is the most abundant and widespread rail species in North America. The best times to catch it stepping out from hiding in the reeds are early mornings and late evenings. You may have heard its distinctive calls when passing the warm-water wetlands along the Riverwalk. Sora are very territorial and talk a lot to avoid running into each other in the dense marsh vegetation. The sora feeds by picking items from the surfaces of the ground, water and plants, and by probing in the mud. It eats a variety of seeds from wetland plants and some aquatic invertebrates. It flicks its tail while walking slowly in and out of vegetation at muddy edges of the marsh, but can also run and swim back into hiding. With its short tail held up, the sora can have the appearance of a small chicken. The most noticeable features of this mottled brown and gray bird are its yellow, thick, stubby bill, and a black mask and throat patch. Strong legs, long toes and the ability to compress its chest wall allow this bird to slide through dense vegetation without alerting predators to its presence. With stubby wings, soras don’t appear to be designed for flight, and their short flights with dangling legs appear awkward. But each spring and fall, some migrate long distances to wetlands as far as Central and South America. Studies have shown that in migratory flights, soras flap their wings constantly and take advantage of winds to increase their speed. Geothermal water flowing through the wetlands along the Riverwalk keep the water there free of ice into winter, and sora often stay there later than they otherwise would. For information on events, visit www.weminucheaudubon.org and www.facebook.com/weminucheaudubon/.