Date: 9/17/26 7:44 am From: Kenny Nichols <kingbird101...> Subject: Re: Possible Yellow Rail at Chesney.
If you didn’t see the white wing patches, it wasn’t a Yellow Rail. If it
had been, the white would have been the ONLY thing you would have noticed.
Kenny Nichols
Dardanelle, AR
On Wed, Sep 16, 2026 at 6:10 PM Ian MacGregor <
<00000489141846bd-dmarc-request...> wrote:
> I thought of Bobolink, but once convinced it was a rail did not look it
> up. The plumage matches very well with what I saw.
>
> I think I’m improving then make a very silly mistake.
>
> Ian
>
>
> Sent from Proton Mail <https://proton.me/mail/home> for iOS.
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> On Wednesday, 09/16/26 at 16:28 Joseph Neal <joeneal...> wrote:
>
> I have seen a few Bobolinks in Sept at Chesney. Is that a possibility?
> ------------------------------
> *From:* The Birds of Arkansas Discussion List <ARBIRD-L...>
> on behalf of Ian MacGregor <
> <00000489141846bd-dmarc-request...>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 16, 2026 3:16 PM
> *To:* <ARBIRD-L...> <ARBIRD-L...>
> *Subject:* Possible Yellow Rail at Chesney.
>
> I have been having a very good month. The warblers have been extremely
> cooperative. Yesterday I had a yong White Ibis at Logan Springs
>
> https://ebird.org/checklist/S393178366 >
> While the Ibis circled before it landed I could see its while lower back
> and rump. But after it landed, It appeared to me to be all. dark in the
> early morning light. Indeed I thought I must have been mistaken and
> would have put it down as a much more likely White-faced, if it were not
> for the pictures.
>
> Which brings me to the bird in question. I was just about finished i with
> my close to five hour walk. I reached the last east/west fencing which
> separates the chicken farm from the preserve. My car was in sight. I
> looked at just following the fence line to my car, but decided against it.
> I instead followed the path through the grass. Just before the path made
> the turn to the east paralleling the fencing a small bird flushed. I noted
> its back part of its wings were striped with black. The stripes ran
> parallel ro the axis of the body. The bird flushed directly in front of
> me. and so close I could see that detail with the naked eye. My first
> very brief thought was just a female Red-winged, but then I thought, “
> that’s a rail!!”
>
> I got glasses on it just before it dropped into the grass. The bird’s
> flight seemed very slow, the wing beats were not abnormally slow but the
> progress seemed to be, The birds shape was a bit quail like, but the wing
> loading was not. The bird flew steadily on normal wingbeats.
>
> It did not dangle its legs. I did not notice white in the secondaries.
> I think I saw enough of the bird that I should have. I don’t know if
> other rails ever use grassland habitats.
>
> I look at pictures of rails and see Yellow as the only one which would
> present such a back pattern, but again I should have seen the white
> secondaries and did not.
>
> When the bird dropped back into the grass it lowered its legs which were
> of the expected length for a rail.
>
> I did not notice legs sticking out behind the bird in flight. Looks like I
> should have seen at least part of a foot.
>
> I was hot from the walk and did not want to harass the bird by crashing
> through the grass looking for it.
>
> Ian MacGregor Bella Vista
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from Proton Mail <https://proton.me/mail/home> for iOS.
>
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