All species › Cranes, rails and allies › Rails and crakes › Grey-breasted Crake
Grey-breasted Crake | Laterallus exilis
Amazonedwergral | Polluela pechigrís
The Grey-breasted Crake is a small grey and brown rail of the tropical lowlands of Central and South America, which in the region occurs only in Trinidad. Like most small crakes it almost always stays hidden in dense, wet vegetation, and it is heard far more often than seen. Its range consists of a series of separate patches.
Voice
A series of two to ten clear, metallic tink or keek notes; also a descending, musical rattle and a quiet, sharp check. It calls by day as well as at night.
Recording: Juan Freile — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
14–15.5 cm, small and short-tailed. Head, sides of neck and breast are pale grey, the throat white, and the nape is chestnut. The rest of the upperparts is olive-brown. Flanks, belly and undertail are barred black and white. The bill is short and greenish, with a darker upper mandible, the eye red and the legs yellowish brown. The sexes are alike. Juveniles are duller and greyer, with less chestnut on the nape and a dark eye.
Confusion species
Yellow-breasted Crake Laterallus flaviventer is smaller, with a buffy-yellow face, a dark eye-stripe, a pale supercilium and yellow legs. Black Rail Laterallus jamaicensis does not occur in Trinidad and is dark slate grey with white speckles on the back. Sora Porzana carolina is larger, with a thick yellow bill and a black face.
Habitat
Shallow standing water with dense grasses and sedges: the edges of marshes, rivers and lakes, wet grassland and rice fields. It also occurs in drier sites with tall grass, such as pastures and grassy ground along airfields. It eats insects, spiders and seeds. The nest is a domed structure of grass with a side entrance, low in dense vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
In the region only in Trinidad, where it is a scarce and local resident of wet grassland, marsh edges and rice fields. There are no regular sites in Tobago or on the other islands. Outside the region in a series of separate patches from Belize and Guatemala through Central America to northern and central South America, as far as Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The species can almost only be found by sound: the series of clear tink notes gives away where the bird is. Wet, grassy edges of marshes and rice fields offer the best chance, especially early in the morning. A bird crossing the edge of a ditch or track is often all there is to see.
Conservation status
Not threatened; the species has a large range and adapts well to wet grassland altered by people. In Trinidad it loses habitat locally through drainage and building.
Scientific name
Laterallus exilis | (Temminck, 1831)
Temminck described the species in 1831 as Rallus exilis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Laterallus was introduced in 1855 by Gray. Laterallus is a contraction of Rallus lateralis, an old synonym of the Rufous-sided Crake; Latin lateralis 'of the side' refers to the coloured flanks. exilis is Latin for 'small, slender', after its tiny size. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana (designated later).