Sora

These shorebirds are so hard to photograph - they move quickly in and out and through the cattails and other water plants. Always surprises me just how small they are - in my mind, they are larger. Saw this one and presumably its mate, SE of the city on 12 July 2014. These birds tend to be heard rather than seen, and I was determined to try and get at least one shot that was half OK. Happy to get any kind of photo, though. It was fun watching how they go about collecting insects for their young ones, who were hidden in amongst the Cattails and dense water plants. I could hear them, but not see them.

My first stop was at Frank Lake, where I saw a few more Eared Grebes with their quite large "babies". The light was really bad, so it was impossible to get photos that showed colour and details. Will lighten one or two of them and see if that works. As well as these Soras, I also saw a few very distant White-faced Ibis, but I lucked out later, finding a lone Ibis at a slough somewhere around the lake.

"A small, secretive bird of freshwater marshes, the Sora is the most common and widely distributed rail in North America. Its distinctive descending whinny call can be easily heard from the depths of the cattails, but actually seeing the little marsh-walker is much more difficult." From AllAboutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/sora/id

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sora_(bird)