This dead rail was found by Jude Holdsworth on Aug. 30th, 2004.  It was lying in the road of the James Baird State Park office area, near the mailbox.  The bird had been cut in the breast area, possibly by a lawnmower.

The habitat area is a golf course, with a stream, ponds, and swampy wetlands, red maple swamps, kettle shrub pools, surrounded by farmland and wooded land, etc.  The location is about 8 miles east of the Hudson River.

The specimen was sent to Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who identified it as a Clapper Rail.  It will be added to the collection of the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates.

Clapper Rails are very rarely recorded away from salt water.

Posted 12/10/04