Yellow Rail

Yellow Rail is an extremely reclusive small marsh bird with a limited and scattered range.  Its distinctive double clicking sound can be heard easily enough at night emanating from the marsh, but actually seeing it requires considerable persistence and perseverance. It moves stealthily on foot, hidden low under thick cover, and takes flight only when flushed, and even then only for a short distance before disappearing again back into dense cover. One good place to see this species diurnally is in the Louisiana rice fields at fall harvesting time when the hiding birds are flushed by the big harvesting combines.