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Coturnicops noveboracensis communicates through sound, visual and tactile cues. It creates a “ticking” noise to notify others that something is approaching. Males also use a "ticking" call to establish territory, and usually pair the call with a physical display involving wing raising. Breeding pairs preen each other as a form of courtship. Like most birds, Coturnicops noveboracensis perceives its environment through auditory, visual, tactile, and chemical stimuli.
Communication Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Coturnicops noveboracensis is a species nearing special conservation concern throughout North America. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has listed it as a focal species and it is recognized as a threatened species in several states and Canada. As migratory birds in the United States, they are protected under the Migratory Bird Act which regulates the collection of this species. Habitat loss is assumed to be the main threat to this species as agricultural development, livestock grazing, and hydrological changes degrade their prime habitat. Other factors such as invasive plants, climate change, and weather catastrophes also play a role in their demise. Increased snow geese (Chens caerulescens) populations also put pressure upon yellow rails as they compete for the same resources.
US Migratory Bird Act: protected
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: threatened
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Coturnicops noveboracensis has no known negative impacts on humans.
Coturnicops noveboracensis provides no known economic benefits to humans.
Little research has been done on the environmental role of Coturnicops noveboracensis. It serves as prey for several species and preys upon crustaceans and other aquatic invertebrates around the marshes it inhabits. Coturnicops noveboracensis is a specialist in the wetland habitat that it occupies and acts as an indicator of ecosystem health along with other sensitive Aves species like short-eared owls (Asio flammeus) and sedge wrens (Cistothorus platensis).
Coturnicops noveboracensis is primarily a mulluscivore. It's diet consists mainly of small snails and crustaceans, insects, and seeds. This species will forage on the ground, surface of water, or occasionally underwater.
Animal Foods: insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods; mollusks; aquatic crustaceans
Plant Foods: seeds, grains, and nuts
Primary Diet: carnivore (Molluscivore )
Commonly known as yellow rails, Coturnicops noveboracensis is distributed throughout the northern neartic region. This migratory rail breeds from the Canadian Maritimes to the wetlands of the northern Great Plains and upper Midwest, from the Atlantic Ocean to Alberta, Canada. It winters along the Atlantic and Gulf coast from North Carolina through Florida, and into southern Texas. A small isolated breeding colony exists in the Klamath Basin of Oregon.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native )
Coturnicops noveboracensis breeds in grass- and sedge-dominated marshes and wetlands with shallow water depths. Standing water over a foot deep, and areas with small trees may be utilized but are not ideal. Their preferred habitat provides a layer of vegetation where they can covertly move beneath. Wintering birds frequent mature salt marshes well above the water line.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial
Wetlands: marsh
Coturnicops noveboracensis has an average lifespan of 5 to 9 years.
Range lifespan
Status: wild: 5 to 9 years.
Coturnicops noveboracensis is an extremely elusive bird and rarely seen as it is so small and tends to run under vegetation. It is most often detected by its "ticking" call. Coturnicops noveboracensis has a buffy-yellow chest and face with buffy-yellow and black streaks across its back. It has a black crown, black eye stripe, and a short, yellow bill. When seen in flight a patch of white can be observed along the edge of the wings, distinguishing it from other rails. Wingspan measures 28 mm in length. Coturnicops noveboracensis averages only 15.25 to 17.78 cm in length with a weight of about 1.8 ounces, making it the second smallest rail in North America. This species exhibits no sexual dimorphism. Newly-hatched chicks are overall black or dark-brown and downy. Juveniles develop plumage similar to adults but are slightly darker.
Average mass: 50 g.
Range length: 15 to 18 cm.
Average wingspan: 28 mm.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; homoiothermic; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike; male larger
Coturnicops noveboracensis is commonly predated upon by short-eared owls, northern harriers, red fox, feral cats, and other mammals that are agile and small enough to catch it. It is also sometimes predated upon by herons and egrets. This species' secretive nature is it's primary method of avoiding predation. Coturnicops noveboracensis remains quiet and stealthy through its whole life, rarely flying or making noise. Its cryptic coloring helps to conceal it in the marsh grass.
Known Predators:
Anti-predator Adaptations: cryptic
Not much is known about the breeding of Coturnicops noveboracensis due to its elusive nature. Males establish large territories by singing and displaying with raised wings. Pairs may preen each other as part of their courtship and are believed to be monogamous.
Mating System: monogamous
Coturnicops noveboracensis breeds annually between late April and the end of July. This is a ground-nesting species that constructs woven nests of grasses and sedges next to or surrounded by water. Within these well-camouflaged nests, females lay a clutch of 5 to 10 eggs in late May that they incubate through June for an average of 23 days. Chicks are precocial and can walk within a day but require parental feeding for up to three weeks. Juveniles later develop the ability to fly, and will fledge after 35 days. Both sexes of a similar species, water rails (Rallus aquaticus), reach sexual maturity at approximately 1 year of age.
Breeding interval: Yellow rails breed once yearly.
Breeding season: Yellow rails breed between late April and the end of July.
Range eggs per season: 5 to 10.
Average time to hatching: 23 days.
Average fledging age: 35 days.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; oviparous
After mating, both males and females participate in weaving their grass nests, but females finish the construction and make sure the nest is well-hidden by incorporating nearby vegetation. Both parents incubate the eggs and care for the young who are able to walk within a day of hatching. The parents feed the young for about three weeks at which point the young become independent. Young are left alone for several days before they acquire flight skills and officially fledge at around 35 days old.
Parental Investment: precocial ; male parental care ; female parental care ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female)
A small (7 inches) chicken-like bird, the Yellow Rail is most easily identified by its small size, mottled-brown body, and short tail. Other field marks include a thin bill, yellow legs, and brown eyes. Male and female Yellow Rails are similar to one another in all seasons. The Yellow Rail breeds extremely locally over a wide area of south-central Canada and the northern United States. These birds migrate south for the winter, when they may be found along the coast of the southeastern United States from North Carolina to Texas. An isolated population may exist in central Mexico, but has not been sighted there since 1964. Yellow Rails breed in shallow freshwater marshes, particularly those where sedges are common. In winter, this species is found in coastal freshwater and saltwater marshes whereSpartinamarsh grasses grow. Yellow Rails mainly eat aquatic snails and insects, and may also take seeds when available. Like most rails, the Yellow Rail is extremely secretive and difficult to observe. This species tends to hide in clumps of tall marsh grasses when startled, more rarely flying short distances close to the top of the vegetation. This species is active both during the day and at night.
The yellow rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) is a small secretive marsh bird of the family Rallidae that is found in North America.
The yellow rail was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the coots in the genus Fulica and coined the binomial name Fulica noveboracensis.[2] Gmelin based his description on the "yellow breasted gallinule" that had been briefly described in 1785 by the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant in his book Arctic Zoology.[3] The yellow rail is now placed in the genus Coturnicops that was erected in 1855 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray.[4][5] The genus name combines coturnix, the Latin word for a "quail", with ōps, an Ancient Greek word meaning "appearance". The specific epithet noveboracensis is Latin for New York (novus means "new" and Eboracum is York, England).[6]
Two subspecies are recognised:[5]
Adults have brown upperparts streaked with black, a yellowish-brown breast, a light belly and barred flanks. The short thick dark bill turns yellow in males during the breeding season. The feathers on the back are edged with white. There is a yellow-brown band over the eye and the legs are greenish-yellow. The birds measure 16–19 cm (6.3–7.5 in) in overall length; males have an average weight of 59 g (2.1 oz), females an average weight of 52 g (1.8 oz).
The nominate subspecies' breeding habitat is wet meadows, fens and shallow marshes across Canada east of the Rockies; also the northeastern United States and the entire northern Canada–US border Great Plains to the Great Lakes. These northern populations of yellow rail migrate to the southeastern coastal United States. Little is known about the yellow rail's winter habits beyond sites along coastal Texas, southeast Oklahoma, and coastal South Carolina. However, researchers have concluded through observational studies that the relative abundance of yellow rails increased in relation to the size of the area surveyed and was higher at sites burned within 3 years. Across sites, each additional hour of survey effort increased the number of birds detected by 0.66 rails/h. Findings indicate yellow rails overwinter in wet pine savanna habitats along the northern Gulf Coast region.[7]
The subspecies Coturnicops noveboracensis goldmani is known only from marshes on the upper Río Lerma (Lerma River) around 2,500 m in elevation in State of Mexico, Mexico, where it was last recorded in 1964.[8]
The yellow rail are very elusive and seldom seen. They generally call at night resembling the sound of two stones being clicked together "tik-tik tik-tik-tik" in repetition. When approached, they are more likely to rely on camouflage and escaping on foot through dense vegetation, rather than flushing.
The nest is a shallow cup built with marsh vegetation on damp ground under a canopy of dead plants. It is made out of woven grasses and leaves.[9]
This rail lays a clutch of five to 10 oval or elongate eggs that usually measure around 29 by 21 millimetres (1.14 by 0.83 in). These eggs are creamy, and spotted with both reddish spots that form a ring at one end, and small black spots that are scattered over the egg. They are incubated by the female for a period of 16 to 18 days. If the first set of eggs are destroyed, the female will generally lay another clutch. After the chicks hatch, the female will either crush the eggshells and hide them from view at the bottom of the nest, or remove the eggshells from the nest, dropping them along the paths leading away from the nest.[9]
The yellow rail feeds primarily on small invertebrates and complements its diet with plant seeds.[10] Beetles (Coleoptera) account for the highest proportion of the birds' diet, followed by spiders (Araneae) and snails (Gastropods), whereas plant matter is dominated by sedges (Cyperaceae) and rushes (Juncaceae).[10]
Their numbers have declined in recent years due to loss of habitat. However, in 2021 a survey using autonomous sound recorders in the Edéhzhíe Protected Area in Canada's Northwest Territories, 150 kilometres (93 mi) outside the species' known range, reported an estimated population of 906 breeding pairs, which may suggest that the species is more widespread than previously thought.[11]
The yellow rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis) is a small secretive marsh bird of the family Rallidae that is found in North America.
