Clapper Rail, right? (1 Viewer)

Just wanted to check and make sure that my ID was correct before I start putting pics of her in the gallery. She was in a saltmarsh on the coast of Louisiana. She was very unhappy that we were so close to her nest.

Here's a couple unedited photos.
http://www.cillana.corydorasworld.com/P7220016.JPG
http://www.cillana.corydorasworld.com/P7210241.JPG

Here's two videos. The second one has sound. I couldn't figure out how to change it to an mpeg and keep the sound so you need QuickTime to view it.
http://www.cillana.corydorasworld.com/P7220003.mpg
http://www.cillana.corydorasworld.com/P7220010.MOV

Hi Cillana.

Yuppers, that's a Clapper Rail. Good for you as they are difficult to find and photograph.

KCFoggin said:

Hi Cillana.

Yuppers, that's a Clapper Rail. Good for you as they are difficult to find and photograph.

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This one was not shy at all. When a class of 13 college students got too close to her nest she went wild running towards us, holding out her wings, and yelling loudly. We were checking goby nest traps in the pond that she nested by so everyday that we came back she seemed to get more angry. One of my classmates got a pic of the eggs on the day I missed checking the traps since I got volunteered to clean the icechests of fish blood. Eeewww... I have the photo of the eggs on a CD but I don't have it with me right now.

As we do not encourage any sort of stress producing movements/actions near/in/around nesting birds, photos of nesting birds, eggs, etc are not in our posting guidelines.

KCFoggin said:

As we do not encourage any sort of stress producing movements/actions near/in/around nesting birds, photos of nesting birds, eggs, etc are not in our posting guidelines.

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WELL FINE THEN! I DON'T WANT YOU TO HAVE MY PHOTOS! I'LL JUST PUT THEM ON MY SITE! IT'S NOT LIKE WE WERE TRYING TO BOTHER HER. WE WERE TRYING TO PERFORM AN EXPERIMENT AND SHE JUST CAME RUNNING AT US! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE NEST WAS!

Cillana, KCFoggin was simply explaining the rules concerning the posting of eggs and nests, for your benefit, so that you wouldn't be wasting your time uploading a picture that would merely have to be removed again. He wasn't condemning you for anything. He's just doing his job. The philosophy at BirdForum is that the discouraging of nest and egg pics might hopefully discourage people in the looking for nests and eggs, since we believe such disturbances are in general bad for bird health. I'm sorry you took it the wrong way.

Cillana said:

WELL FINE THEN! I DON'T WANT YOU TO HAVE MY PHOTOS! I'LL JUST PUT THEM ON MY SITE! IT'S NOT LIKE WE WERE TRYING TO BOTHER HER. WE WERE TRYING TO PERFORM AN EXPERIMENT AND SHE JUST CAME RUNNING AT US! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE NEST WAS!

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Hi Cillana - Yikes! - chill out...Seriously, I think Ms. KCFoggin was just letting you know that birding etiquette is that one doesn't disturb a nest (by the way, it's a lesson many of us learn the hard way) and so BF doesn't post nest and egg photos (I don't know whether that means the mad mom photo is out also).

As you point out, sometimes it's hard to balance that etiquette of not disturbing a nest with the imperatives of science and education. Perhaps the goby traps could have been moved to locations on the salt marsh that were not so close to the Clapper Rail nest? Perhaps you could let the professor know that the site is Clapper Rail nesting habitat and she/he needs to be prepared to have students relocate the fish traps if the same thing happens again. Let's just hope the bird wasn't so stressed that she abandoned the nest but stayed on it, hatched her eggs and moved to a less public area. Or that the experiment was completed and she finished the brood without disturbance. Barbara

Or maybe you should just run the experiment and try to avoid getting close to the nest. I wouldn't completely move everything, but I would try and stay away from the nest. Try and find a distance at which the rail seems more comfortable and just don't go into that space. There is no sense in moving an entire experiment, especially when you may move into another rail's habitat.

Sorry I got all out of wack. I wasn't going to post the egg pic. Just wanted to look at it so I could tell what they looked like (is that okay?). I was just upset that you were condeming (or so I thought) my pics of the mom. She got a lot closer than any of the other rails and the photos turned out really well. She wasn't angry the whole time we were checking the traps. They are along a small pond in the lawn of the research center. When we got to the far side (away from the building, towards the marsh) she would come at us yelling, but after realizing that we were ignoring her (except taking pics from where we were standing), she calmed down and just watched us closely until we finished checking the traps on that side of the pond. The professor was with us so he knows. The class is over, but the researchers there are still checking the traps. Probably not every day like we were though. Here's a pic of the pond taken from the balcony of my dorm room.