Yellow rail
Coturnicops noveboracensis
Identification Tips:
- Small, chunky, short-tailed, round-winged, ground-dwelling
marsh bird
- White secondaries
- Short, thick, yellow bill
- Black upperparts with thin white fringes to feathers and broad buffy streaks
- Dark crown, yellow supercilium, and dark eyeline
- Breast buffy yellow
- Belly whitish
- Flanks and undertail coverts barred black and white
- Rarely flies, therefore, rarely seen
- Sexes similar
- Juvenile darker than adult
Similar species:
The immature Sora is similar to the Yellow Rail but is larger, and has
white undertail coverts and darker upperparts that are spotted with white
rather than streaked with buff and black. In flight, the Yellow Rail
shows white secondaries.