rallus longirostris
Jekyll Island, Georgia – Jekyll Island Guest Information Center
Monday, March 24, 2025 – 2:35 pm
The Jekyll Island visitor center (gift shop, actually) sits on a wide space along the causeway out to the island. Behind the building there’s a raised deck that looks out over an extensive marsh along the Turtle River. As the tide came in, many shorebirds flew in from further out in the marsh and hung out on the flats near the platform. Another birder, a Wisconsin native who spends his winters on the island, came by, and we began to chat. I told him that I’d been informed that that was THE PLACE to see Clapper Rails. He didn’t agree, although he said they were certainly in the marsh.
A couple of minutes later, I saw a Clapper Rail break out of the reeds along a narrow channel through the mud. It flew across the water, landed on the mud on the far side, and scurried immediately into the marsh grasses on the other side. I barely had time to get it in my binoculars but certainly didn’t have time to take a photo. When I told the other birder, he played the song, and immediately two others called out, one of which was somewhere just below the platform. I didn’t see one again then, or later in the evening when I stopped by on my way back to my hotel.
The Wisconsin birder told me I could get a photo at Driftwood Beach, on the island, early in the morning, so I made sure I was there shortly after dawn. I parked my car and began walking toward the trail when a Clapper Rail ran across the road into a marsh on the other side. I walked a short way down the trail and soon saw two Clappers wading along the edge of a grassy channel. The walked right past me, not five feet away and perhaps two feet below the level I was standing on. I got some good photos of one of them, and then some more photos of one that walked along a muddy bank on the other side of the path. I spotted what I believe was a fifth one nearby a few minutes later.
They were larger than a Virginia Rail, but with basically the same markings, although the markings were not nearly as sharp or contrasting. They poked under the water with their bills as they stalked furtively in rail fashion. They even acted furtive when they were right out in the open. Frequently, they gave their clapping calls, often in response between two birds.
