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 darker crown and nape; black mask, chin and throat. Bill is yellow with dark tip. Sexes are similar; female slightly smaller. Winter adult has black throat feathers; gray breast feathers; striking head pattern; yellow bill with greenish tip; gray foreneck and breast with no spots. Juvenile upperparts and wings like adult; more white streaks, olive brown to buff on head, neck and breast.

Range and Habitat

Sora: Breeds from southeastern Alaska, east to Newfoundland, and south locally to northwestern California, southern New Mexico, eastern Colorado, Iowa, central Ohio, and Maryland. Winters from central California, to southern Texas and the Gulf Coast states, 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: Their diet consists of mollusks, insects, snails, seeds of marsh plants and wetland plants, aquatic invertebrates and duckweed. They forage for food by raking floating vegetation with their feet or pulling aside vegetation with their bill and visually searching for food. They use their short, chicken like bill to peck from the water surface. They generally feed from a standing position.

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.