I directed this note to a friend copied to this list yesterday, but
apparently it didn't get through...
Yeah, BIWA is a good place for both species, but with a lot more frogs
than rails! Yellow rails, like most birds, understandably use their
vocalizations mostly during the breeding period, rather than fall, and
if you listen to recordings, their sounds are easily distinguishable
from the far more likely and numerous sounds from the frogs. The BNA
treatment says "In Michigan, males cease calling about mid-Jul (Stenzel
1982), but in Quebec they call as late as 25 Aug (Robert and Laporte 1993)."
Still, there are plenty of late September records of yellow rails in
Ohio, and the October records tend to occur early in the month. First
half of September---not so much. Overall, we get a lot more yellow rails
in Ohio--in either month--than are ever documented well enough to record.
Bill Whan

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