Re: [cobirds] Question for the Rail Experts

2022-07-15 Thread mvjo...@gmail.com 
Thanks Nathanwe will have to monitor this and learn what we can. If 
females are not vocal, then we won't easily know if these birds are 
breeding. But lets stay tuned and see how things evolve. Thanks for the 
insight!

John Rawinski
Monte Vista, CO

On Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 11:32:29 AM UTC-6 Nathan Pieplow wrote:

> Good question, John. 
>
> From what I can tell, most of what we know about Yellow Rail behavior and 
> vocalizations comes from the work of Scott Stalheim, who in the early 1970s 
> created a type of outdoor pen in a marsh in Minnesota so that he could 
> observe captive Yellow Rails under conditions that closely simulated their 
> natural situation. He never reported a female giving the clicking song. His 
> sample size wasn't huge, but it would seem that females are unlikely to 
> give the clicking song. In *Rallus* rails, female songs sound quite 
> different from male songs. Stalheim never reported any kind of female song 
> in Yellow Rail.
>
> If there are two rails giving the clicking song at Monte Vista, they would 
> seem to be territorial males. Birds of the World says "In Michigan, males 
> cease calling about mid-Jul (Stenzel 1982), but in Quebec they call as late 
> as 25 Aug (Robert and Laporte 1993)." It will be interesting to see how 
> long the Colorado birds persist.
>
> The San Luis Valley is much farther south than the species has ever been 
> known to breed before. It puts me in mind of the still-difficult-to-explain 
> phenomenon of Baird's Sparrows and even a Sprague's Pipit or two being 
> found singing and nesting along the Front Range in recent years. Have they 
> always been there and we just never noticed? Are they reclaiming their 
> historical range? Or is this some kind of weird southward expansion? Why 
> would ranges expand so far south when the general tendency of climate 
> change is to push ranges north?
>
> If the rails are indeed nesting at Monte Vista, it may be their 
> highest-ever nesting elevation (7600 feet). The highest populations I was 
> previously aware of are at the Klamath Marsh NWR in Oregon, at an elevation 
> of about 4500 feet. Climate change is known to drive species upslope. But 
> upslope-and-a-thousand-miles-south? That's pretty weird.
>
> Nathan Pieplow
> Boulder
>
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 10:50 AM mvjo...@gmail.com  
> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know if both male and female make the clicking sounds? You 
>> can see where I am going with this and wondering if this mght be a breeding 
>> pair?
>>
>> John Rawinski
>> Monte Vista, CO
>>
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>> 
>> .
>>
>

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Re: [cobirds] Question for the Rail Experts

2022-07-14 Thread Nathan Pieplow 
Good question, John.

>From what I can tell, most of what we know about Yellow Rail behavior and
vocalizations comes from the work of Scott Stalheim, who in the early 1970s
created a type of outdoor pen in a marsh in Minnesota so that he could
observe captive Yellow Rails under conditions that closely simulated their
natural situation. He never reported a female giving the clicking song. His
sample size wasn't huge, but it would seem that females are unlikely to
give the clicking song. In *Rallus* rails, female songs sound quite
different from male songs. Stalheim never reported any kind of female song
in Yellow Rail.

If there are two rails giving the clicking song at Monte Vista, they would
seem to be territorial males. Birds of the World says "In Michigan, males
cease calling about mid-Jul (Stenzel 1982), but in Quebec they call as late
as 25 Aug (Robert and Laporte 1993)." It will be interesting to see how
long the Colorado birds persist.

The San Luis Valley is much farther south than the species has ever been
known to breed before. It puts me in mind of the still-difficult-to-explain
phenomenon of Baird's Sparrows and even a Sprague's Pipit or two being
found singing and nesting along the Front Range in recent years. Have they
always been there and we just never noticed? Are they reclaiming their
historical range? Or is this some kind of weird southward expansion? Why
would ranges expand so far south when the general tendency of climate
change is to push ranges north?

If the rails are indeed nesting at Monte Vista, it may be their
highest-ever nesting elevation (7600 feet). The highest populations I was
previously aware of are at the Klamath Marsh NWR in Oregon, at an elevation
of about 4500 feet. Climate change is known to drive species upslope. But
upslope-and-a-thousand-miles-south? That's pretty weird.

Nathan Pieplow
Boulder

On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 10:50 AM mvjo...@gmail.com 
wrote:

> Does anyone know if both male and female make the clicking sounds? You can
> see where I am going with this and wondering if this mght be a breeding
> pair?
>
> John Rawinski
> Monte Vista, CO
>
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> * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include
> bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate
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> 
> .
>

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[cobirds] Question for the Rail Experts

2022-07-14 Thread mvjo...@gmail.com 
Does anyone know if both male and female make the clicking sounds? You can 
see where I am going with this and wondering if this mght be a breeding 
pair?

John Rawinski
Monte Vista, CO

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