The Black Rail Project

The project is a collaboration between Jerry Tecklin of the University of California Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center and Dr. Steven Beissinger of the University of California at Berkeley.

The aim of the project is initially to determine what type of habitats are most likely to support black rails and how likely it is for a bird to be found in a given suitable location. We also plan to survey sites over the coming years to learn how stable the population is and investigate how the black rail survives in an area where its habitable sites appear to be small and widely spaced.

Project Description

The aim of the project is to determine:

(1) What are the characteristics (size, vegetation, water sources, etc.) of the wetland habitats that are most likely to support Black Rails in the Sierra Foothills;

(2) How often do rails in occupied sites disappear (go extinct) from one year to the next and how often do unoccupied sites in one year become occupied (colonized) in the following year; and

(3) Determine if there are certain site characteristics that reduce the chance of local extinction and promote local colonization

To uncover these patterns, we re-survey sites and over successive years to learn how stable the population is, and to investigate how the Black Rail survives in an area where its wetland sites are small and widely spaced. Surveys are conducted from 30 minutes before sunrise until 210 minutes after sunrise, and from 180 minutes before sunset until 30 minutes after sunset. These periods have been found to have the greatest chance of detecting Black Rails.

Entering about 50 feet into the marsh, taped rail calls are played from a tape recorded through a small external speaker that is rotated in all directions. The tape includes 4 minutes of calls with intervals of silence interspersed, and this is followed by a final listening period of 2 minutes. If a rail is not detected, the surveyor walks another 150 feet to the next station in the marsh and replays the tape. Surveys end at a site when either a Black Rail calls back to the tape and is confirmed, or the entire marsh is surveyed. When rails are not detected, we return to sites up to three times within a year. We have found that three visits yields a 99% chance of detecting a rail if it is present on a site.

END PROJECT DESCRIPTION

      Black Rail metapopulation study sites (yellow) in the Sierra Nevada foothills, CA

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