Day 34: rare rail

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OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT!

a rare rail at Rocky Hill

We are now in the thirty-fourth day of our quarantine, i.e. confinement, introspection, isolation. We are staying at home, working from home, eating our home-cooking, keeping our distance, keeping it safe. 

Or like the adventure we reported yesterday of Betty Thompson, we hop in our car and drive a long way to where there are no people and if we are lucky, we might see a species of bird we had never seen before.

Or, a little easier, we go out to mow the lawn and find one timidly lurking in the shadows of the shrubbery instead. 

"Is this a Virginia rail?" read the text from Paul James with the Knoxville History Project. Paul and I have a history of driving great distances to see odd-looking birds. 

"He seems a little out of his natural habitat and came out of the bushes when I went by with my lawnmower," continued Paul.

Say what? Virginia rails (Rallus limicola) live in freshwater and brackish marshes, even some times in saltwater marshes in winter. They are smallish and secretive, usually not turning up hiding in the bushes of suburbia. They are more often heard, not seen unless you pass through their wetland pushing a lawnmower but that rarely happens.

The TWRA website states that in Tennessee,"This rail is a rare permanent resident, and uncommon migrant." But April is the month they tend to pass through on their way to parts more northern and far wetter.

As a naturalist you are taught to never think something is impossible, because nature has a way of proven you are wrong. 'Nuff said!

Signing out: Ob-la-de. ob-la-da.

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