King Rail (Rallus elegans)
About the King Rail
The king rail (Rallus elegans) is a large, mostly brown rail native to North America, where it breeds in marshes. Distinct features are a long bill with a slight downward curve, with adults being brown on the back and rusty-brown on the face and breast with a dark brown cap. They also have a white throat and a light belly with barred flanks. Undertail coverts are white and are displayed by the male during courtship. Immature birds are covered in down, with light brown on the head and darker brown on the back and wings. The males are larger than females, the male weighing on average 369 g (13.0 oz) and the female weighing 309 g (10.9 oz). This bird's call is a low repeated grunt transcribed as kek-kek-kek.
A real field recording of the King Rail. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
Listen
Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed CC BY-SA ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in United States · xeno-canto lists 91 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- African RailRallus caerulescensprofile
- Austral RailRallus antarcticusprofile
- Aztec RailRallus tenuirostrisprofile
- Bogota RailRallus semiplumbeusrecording
- Brown-cheeked RailRallus indicusrecording
- Clapper RailRallus crepitansprofile
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.