Description
Autumnal Water Rail
This image of an Autumnal Water Rail benefits from the sun’s reflection on a large Oak tree.
Capturing this autumnal water rail image
Like all good images this one of an autumnal water rail took a while to capture and involved a fair amount of pain! I spent about 3 hours lying on a very uncomfortable platform, which was about a foot above a stream. I arrived at about 6am and the water rail didn’t appear until about 745! By this time I had a considerable dent in my shins from a metal ledge.
Smaller and distinctly slimmer than the moorhen, the water rail is a fairly common but highly secretive inhabitant of freshwater wetlands. It has chestnut-brown and black upperparts, grey face and underparts and black-and-white barred flanks, and a long red bill. Difficult to see in the breeding season, it is relatively easier to find in winter, when it is also more numerous and widespread. Although usually secretive they can become confident but are still far more often heard than seen.
Water rail, (Rallus aquaticus), slender marsh bird of the family Rallidae (order Gruiformes), native to most of Europe and Asia.
Smaller and distinctly slimmer than the moorhen, the water rail is a fairly common but highly secretive inhabitant of freshwater wetlands. It has chestnut-brown and black upperparts, grey face and underparts and black-and-white barred flanks, and a long red bill.
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