Clapper Rail

IDENTIFICATION: A shy, chicken-sized marsh bird, grayish-brown above and cinnamon-colored below, with a long, narrow bill. Its body is laterally compressed to allow it to squeeze between swamp vegetation. Length: 32-41 cm.; weight: 160-400 g.

VOICE: The Clapper Rail makes a variety of calls including grunts, and a sound like clapping. Loud noises, like a car door slamming, can trigger it to start calling. Audio (M. Oberle).

HABITAT: Mangroves and adjacent saltwater mudflats.

HABITS: More often heard than seen. It walks on mangrove roots and mudflats, occasionally flicking its tiny tail. It plucks fiddler crabs and other crab species from the surface, and will also eat some snails, worms, small fish and aquatic insects. It sometimes rinses off its food before swallowing it, and often regurgitates undigested food in a condensed pellet. The male primarily builds the nest, usually in dense vegetation or among mangrove roots. Both sexes incubate the 6-7 eggs for about 20 days. The chicks leave the nest immediately after hatching and can swim at one day of age. The parents divide the brood up and care for each group of chicks separately for about 5-6 weeks after hatching. The young can fly at about 63-70 days, but the Clapper Rail prefers to run for cover rather than fly from danger.

STATUS AND CONSERVATION: A common marsh species but has probably declined over the last century as mangrove swamps have been destroyed. It has been heavily hunted for its tasty flesh. A local expression in Puerto Rico is to call someone "Pollo de Mangle," a joking way of saying that someone is ugly.

RANGE: Breeds from coastal New England and California, south through coastal Central America to Peru and Brazil. In the West Indies, it breeds throughout the Greater Antilles, east to Guadeloupe. Large mangrove stands such as at Cabo Rojo and the Boquer≤n Wildlife Refuge are regular sites in Puerto Rico.

TAXONOMY: GRUIFORMES; RALLIDAE

Photo: G. Beaton

References

Bent, A.C. 1926. Life histories of North American marsh birds. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 135. (Reprinted by Dover Press, NY, 1963).

Burt, W. 1994. Shadowbirds: a quest for rails. Lyons Press, New York.

del Hoyo, J., A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds. 1996. Handbook of Birds of the World, Vol. 3. Hoatzin to Auks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Eddleman, W.R. and C.J. Conway. 1998. Clapper Rail (Rallus longirostris). No. 340 in The birds of North America (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Taylor, B. Rails. 1998. Rails: a guide to the rails, crakes, gallinules, and coots of the world, Yale University and Pica Press.

Clapper Rail, Spanish text

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