DSC9490 Water Rail.. - a photo on Flickriver

            Water Rail - Rallus aqauticus

The water rail (Rallus aquaticus) is a bird of the rail family which breeds in well-vegetated wetlands across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Northern and eastern populations are migratory, but this species is a permanent resident in the warmer parts of its breeding range.

The water rail breeds in reed beds and other marshy sites with tall, dense vegetation, building its nest a little above the water level from whatever plants are available nearby.

These rails are vulnerable to flooding or freezing conditions, loss of habitat and predation by mammals and large birds. The introduced American mink has exterminated some island populations, but overall the species' huge range and large numbers mean that it is not considered to be threatened.

The water rail breeds across temperate Eurasia from Iceland and the British Isles discontinuously to North Africa, Saudi Arabia and western China.

The Icelandic population of water rail, R. a. hibernans, became extinct around 1965, as a result of loss of habitat through the draining of wetlands, and predation by the introduced American mink.

The breeding habitat of the water rail is permanent wetland with still or slow-moving fresh or brackish water and dense, tall vegetation, which may include common reed, reedmace, irises, bur-reed or sedges.

Occasionally, more unusual locations are used. One pair in Scotland nested in the open by the side of a road, and when an English nature reserve installed nest boxes for bearded tits (reed "wigwams" with a wooden floor), rails nested both in the boxes and under the wooden floor, in the latter case sometimes with the tits in residence above.

On migration and in winter, a wider range of wet habitats may be used, including flooded thickets or bracken. Freezing condition may force birds into more open locations such as ditches, rubbish dumps and gardens, or even out onto exposed ice.

A Welsh study suggested that individual winter territories overlap, with each bird using a significant proportion of the reed bed. After site desertion in freezing weather, birds return to their former range.

Water rails have been eaten by humans for thousands of years; they were eaten by the Romans, and depicted in wall paintings at Pompeii, and consumption continued through the Middle Ages to modern times.

Population:

UK breeding:

1,100 territories

Taken on: March 5, 2019

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Jeff Lack Photography « less

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