All species › Cranes, rails and allies › Rails, gallinules and coots › Spotted Rail
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › All other modern birds Neoaves › Birds of the elements Elementaves › Cranes and waders Gruimorphae
Spotted Rail | Pardirallus maculatus
Gevlekte ral | Rascón pinto
The Spotted Rail is a medium-sized rail with black-and-white spotted and barred plumage, a long greenish-yellow bill and red eyes. It lives hidden in dense marsh vegetation, wet grassland and rice fields and is heard far more often than seen. In the guide area it occurs patchily and locally from western and southern Mexico to Panama.
Voice
A loud, rasping, groaning screech, usually preceded by a grunt or pop, and an accelerating series of deep, hoarse, pumping notes. Also calls at night.
Recording: José Menéndez — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
25–28 cm; the female is slightly smaller than the male. Head and neck are blackish with fine white dots. The upperparts are black and brown, with white streaks and spots. The underparts are blackish with dense white spots on the breast and white bars on the belly and flanks; the undertail coverts are white. The bill is long and greenish-yellow with a red spot at the base of the lower mandible; the eye is red, the legs pink to red. Juveniles are browner and less sharply marked, with a duller bill. It seldom flies, and then only briefly, with legs dangling.
Confusion species
No other rail in the guide area has this spotted black-and-white plumage. Virginia Rail Rallus limicola is smaller, with a rufous breast, grey cheeks and a reddish bill. King Rail Rallus elegans and Clapper Rail Rallus crepitans are larger and browner, with barring only on the flanks. Sora Porzana carolina is smaller, with a short, stout yellow bill.
Habitat
Freshwater marshes with dense, tall vegetation of rushes, cattail and grass, wet grassland, flooded pasture and rice fields; mainly in the lowlands. Forages in shallow water and at the edge of vegetation for earthworms, insects, small fish and plant matter, mostly at dusk. Sometimes appears suddenly in temporarily flooded areas and disappears again when they dry out. The nest is a cup of grass close to the ground in marsh vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In Mexico patchy and local on the Pacific side from Nayarit and Jalisco to Oaxaca and Chiapas, and on the Atlantic side from Veracruz and Tabasco to the Yucatán Peninsula. Further local in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, mainly in the marshes of Guanacaste, and scarce in Panama. Its distribution is irregular; at many sites the species is recorded only occasionally. Outside the guide area in Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica and in much of South America, south to Argentina.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best chance is at dusk along the edges of rice fields and marshes, where birds briefly leave cover. The call usually gives the first clue. Well-known sites are the marshes around San Blas in Nayarit and the Palo Verde wetlands in Costa Rica. Waiting at an opening in the vegetation produces more than walking around.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species has a large range, but in the guide area it is scarce and local and probably often overlooked. Drainage and conversion of marshes to farmland and burning of marsh vegetation are threats; rice fields locally provide substitute habitat.
Scientific name
Pardirallus maculatus | (Boddaert, 1783)
Boddaert described the species in 1783 as Rallus maculatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Pardirallus was introduced in 1856 by Bonaparte. Pardirallus combines Greek pardos 'leopard' with Rallus 'rail': a 'leopard rail', after the spotted plumage. maculatus is Latin for 'spotted', after the white spots and bars on the plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cayenne, French Guiana.