Posted by Barry Heimlich on January 01, 1970 at 00:00:00
Brian, I don't blame you for questioning my ID, but what I saw were not Meadowlarks, I know what Meadowlarks look like. Meadowlarks perch high on grasses, don't hide in the grass, and are strong flyers like blackbirds. The 3 birds I saw from about 15' were flushed like quail one at a time from hiding in shallow grass (about 6"-12"), had weak fluttery fights with a few shallow rapid beats alternating with short glides, and they quickly settled down to hide again in the shallow grass. Go to https://barrysbirds.shutterfly.com/birdingtrips/5849 to see a markup of the out-of-focus picture compared with a sketch of Yellow Rail in similar orientation from Nat Geo Birds of NA, which is very much like what I saw. My bird was flying away with delta-like shape from behind, was sparrow sized, had a very short all black, rounded, spread tail, black head and back, and short black rounded wings with spread primaries. The white or very pale yellow secondary feathers were very prominent. Unfortunately, my camera focused on the power lines in the distance. I went back to the site today with a friend and spent almost 2 hours searching for the birds without luck unfortunately. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that they were Yellow Rails, not Meadowlarks.