General

Sora: Small rail with dark gray-brown upperparts with black-and-white streaks. Breast is gray and flanks and belly are dark gray with white bars. Gray head has a darker crown and nape, and black face, chin, and throat. Bill is yellow with dark tip. Sexes are similar. Winter adult and juvenile are browner and have pale throats.

Range and Habitat

Sora: Breeds from southeastern Alaska, east to Newfoundland, and south locally to northwestern Baja California, southern New Mexico, eastern Colorado, southern Missouri, central Ohio, and Maryland. Winters from central California, to southern Texas and the Gulf Coast, and south through Central America to South America. Prefers freshwater marshes, flooded fields, and swamps.

Breeding and Nesting

Sora: Ten to twelve buff eggs with brown and gray blotches are laid in a shallow basket of cattails, dry leaves, grass, and reeds, and attached to stalks of dense, living vegetation; nest is usually built over or adjacent to water. Both parents incubate the eggs for 18 to 20 days.

Foraging and Feeding

Sora: Diet consists of mollusks, insects, snails, seeds of marsh plants, and duckweed. Snails and insects are picked from the ground and vegetation, or caught by probing soft mud with its bill.

Vocalization

Sora: Song is a rapid, descending whinny of very short, shrill "dee" notes. In spring utters an ascending "ner-wee."

Similar Species

Sora: Adult is unmistakable; Yellow Rail is much smaller, shows white wing patch in flight, and is grayer overall than juvenile Sora.