Occurrence of the California Clapper Rail Away from Marshes
Occurrence of the California Clapper Rail away from Marshes
The California Clapper Rail (Rallus obsoletus obsoletus) is an inhabitant of the salt-water marshes around San Francisco Bay. Information concerning its distribution shows a remarkable restriction to this habitat which not only is small, but which now is being invaded rapidly by development of this area for human use. Any clues as to what may become of the rails when the marshes are drained should have significance for the future welfare of the species.
I am acquainted with two occurrences of rails which bear upon this situation. On the morning of September 3, 1928, at the comer of Hearst and Walnut streets in Berkeley, I picked up a dead rail at the south base of a woven wire fence which surrounds a plot of ground used for experimental purposes by the College of Agriculture of the University of California. The bird's bill was broken and bent, and it obviously had been killed by striking the fence. It was a male, weight 330 grams, and is now skin number 53226 in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. The second specimen was brought to the Museum by Mr. Gordon Bolander who found it on October 4, 1932, “dead beneath a barbed wire fence” at the corner of 14th Avenue and East 14th Street, Oakland. This one also was a male; it is skin number 62350.
Both these birds evidently were flying low, over dry land, and at a distance from the water. The first one was at least two miles from the nearest point on the Bay and considerably farther from the nearest suitable habitat for rails. These examples give basis for the suggestion that the birds move about by lengthy flights, at least in the fall, and further that so long as there is marshland available in the region the species may be expected to occupy it, if not already fully populated, by moving in from reclaimed areas when these are being drained.
Jean M. Linsdale
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California, February 15, 1936
