{{short description|Species of bird}} {{Speciesbox | name = Yellow rail | image = Yellow Rail.jpg | image2 = Coturnicops noveboracensis - Yellow Rail XC344711.mp3 | status = LC | status_system = IUCN3.1 | status_ref = <ref name="iucn status 11 November 2021">{{cite iucn |author=BirdLife International |date=2016 |title=''Coturnicops noveboracensis'' |volume=2016 |article-number=e.T22692275A93345717 |doi=10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22692275A93345717.en |access-date=11 November 2021}}</ref> | genus = Coturnicops | species = noveboracensis | authority = (Gmelin, JF, 1789) | subdivision_ranks = Subspecies | subdivision = {{Species list |C. n. noveboracensis|(Gmelin, JF, 1789) |C. n. goldmani|(Nelson, 1904) }} | range_map = Coturnicops noveboracensis map.svg | range_map_caption = {{leftlegend|#FF7F2A|Breeding}}{{leftlegend|#FFDD55|Migration}}{{leftlegend|#5F8DD3|Nonbreeding}} }}
The '''yellow rail''' ('''''Coturnicops noveboracensis''''') is a small secretive marsh bird of the family Rallidae that is found in North America.
==Taxonomy== 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''.<ref>{{ cite book | last=Gmelin | first=Johann Friedrich | author-link=Johann Friedrich Gmelin| year=1789 | title=Systema naturae per regna tria naturae: secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis | edition=13th | volume=1, Part 2 | language=Latin | location=Lipsiae [Leipzig] | publisher=Georg. Emanuel. Beer | page=701 | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2656194 }}</ref> 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''.<ref>{{cite book | last=Pennant | first=Thomas | author-link=Thomas Pennant | year=1785 | title=Arctic Zoology | volume=2 | publisher=Printed by Henry Hughs | location=London, United Kingdom | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32122273 | page=491 }}</ref> The yellow rail is now placed in the genus ''Coturnicops'' that was erected in 1855 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray.<ref>{{ cite book | last=Gray | first=George Robert | author-link=George Robert Gray | year=1855 | title=Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera of Birds Contained in the British Museum | location=London | publisher=British Museum | page=120 | url=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/17136759}}</ref><ref name=ioc>{{cite web| editor1-last=Gill | editor1-first=Frank | editor1-link=Frank Gill (ornithologist) | editor2-last=Donsker | editor2-first=David | editor3-last=Rasmussen | editor3-first=Pamela | editor3-link=Pamela Rasmussen | date= August 2022 | title=Flufftails, finfoots, rails, trumpeters, cranes, limpkin | work=IOC World Bird List Version 12.2 | url=https://www.worldbirdnames.org/new/bow/flufftails/ | publisher=International Ornithologists' Union | access-date=12 October 2022 }}</ref> 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).<ref>{{cite book | last=Jobling | first=James A. | year=2010| title=The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names | publisher=Christopher Helm | location=London | isbn=978-1-4081-2501-4 | pages=[https://archive.org/stream/Helm_Dictionary_of_Scientific_Bird_Names_by_James_A._Jobling#page/n120/mode/1up 120], [https://archive.org/stream/Helm_Dictionary_of_Scientific_Bird_Names_by_James_A._Jobling#page/n276/mode/1up 276]}}</ref>
Two subspecies are recognised:<ref name=ioc/> * ''C. n. noveboracensis'' (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – Canada and north USA * † ''C. n. goldmani'' (Nelson, 1904) – central Mexico (extinct)
==Description== 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 {{cvt|16|-|19|cm}} in overall length; males have an average weight of {{cvt|59|g}}, females an average weight of {{cvt|52|g}}.
==Distribution and habitat== 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Soehren |first1=Eric C. |last2=Hereford |first2=Scott G. |last3=Morris |first3=Kelly M. |last4=Trent |first4=John A. |last5=Walker |first5=Jacob |last6=Woodrey |first6=Mark S. |last7=Rush |first7=Scott A. |date=1 September 2018 |title=Winter use of wet pine savannas by Yellow Rail (''Coturnicops noveboracensis'') along coastal Alabama and Mississippi |journal=Wilson Journal of Ornithology |volume=130 |issue=3 |pages=615–625 |doi=10.1676/17-041.1}}</ref>
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.<ref name=bow>{{cite web | last1=Leston | first1=L. | last2=Bookhout | first2=T.A. | year=2020 | title=Yellow Rail (''Coturnicops noveboracensis''), version 1.0 | editor-last=Poole | editor-first=A.F. | work=Birds of the World | location=Ithaca, NY, USA | publisher=Cornell Lab of Ornithology | url=https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.yelrai.01 | access-date=12 October 2022 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>
==Behaviour== 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.
===Breeding=== 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.<ref name="Hauber2014">{{cite book|last=Hauber|first=Mark E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=evQvBAAAQBAJ|title=The Book of Eggs: A Life-Size Guide to the Eggs of Six Hundred of the World's Bird Species|date=1 August 2014|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-05781-1|location=Chicago|page=56|author-link=Mark Hauber}}</ref>
This rail lays a clutch of five to 10 oval or elongate eggs that usually measure around {{convert|29|by|21|mm|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.<ref name="Hauber2014"/>
===Food and feeding=== The yellow rail feeds primarily on small invertebrates and complements its diet with plant seeds.<ref name = "Robert et al. 1997">{{cite journal |last1=Robert |first1=Michael |last2=Cloutier |first2=Louise |last3=Laporte |first3=Pierre |date=December 1997 |title=The summer diet of the Yellow Rail in Southern Québec |journal=The Wilson Bulletin |volume=109 |issue=4 |pages=702–710 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/4163870 |access-date=21 March 2022}}</ref> 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).<ref name = "Robert et al. 1997"/>
==Status== 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, {{convert|150|km}} 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.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://bioone.org/journals/waterbirds/volume-44/issue-2/063.044.0204/High-density-Yellow-Rail-Coturnicops-noveboracensis-Population-Beyond-Purported-Range/10.1675/063.044.0204.short |title=High-density Yellow Rail (''Coturnicops noveboracensis'') Population Beyond Purported Range Limits in the Northwest Territories, Canada |first1=Logan J. T. |last1=McLeod |first2=Samuel |last2=Haché |first3=Rhiannon F. |last3=Pankratz |first4=Erin M. |last4=Bayne |date=23 December 2021 |journal=Waterbirds |volume=44 |issue=2 |pages=175–184 |doi=10.1675/063.044.0204 |access-date=21 March 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Commons}} * [http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=2822&m=0 BirdLife Species Factsheet] * [https://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Yellow_Rail.html Yellow rail Species Account] – Cornell Lab of Ornithology * [https://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i2150id.html Yellow rail – ''Coturnicops noveboracensis''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061211181655/http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i2150id.html |date=2006-12-11 }} – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter * [https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100233/Coturnicops_noveboracensis RangeMap & synopsis] InfoNatura NatureServe
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yellow rail Category:Birds of Canada Category:Native birds of the Plains-Midwest (United States) Category:Native birds of the Northeastern United States yellow rail yellow rail