Hi all, I headed down to Circleville this afternoon, arriving at the Black Rail locale near Charlie's Pond around 4:15. There, I met Ken Beers, who had also just arrived. Within five minutes, we heard a Black Rail vocalizing, clear as a bell and loud as could be. With no prompting, the bird called fairly often for quite some time and just couldn't be missed. Then, in a stupendous fit of serendipity, the bird fluttered weakly across the road right before our eyes! Those who know how hard this species is to actually see will appreciate that bit of luck. We are reasonably certain that we heard another as well, but this species can be rather ventroliqual, but when I was hearing the bird on the north side of the road calling from only feet away, Ken, who was stationed some distance down the road, heard another on the opposite side. The classic Kick-ee-drrr song is that of the male, and that's what we mostly heard. But several times and at close range, we also heard the rapid cuckoo-like coos that are attributed to female Black Rails. The plot thickens. All the blather about taping and I-podding aside, there should be no reason to do that in this case. The rail(s) are quite vocal and can be easily heard with no prompting. One interesting thing was how the Ring-necked Pheasants would set them off. There are a lot of pheasants in the area, and one of the roosters was periodically crowing close at hand, followed by the loud burst of wing-flapping that displaying males engage in. Ninety percent of the time the pheasant crowed/flapped, one of the Black Rails would call soon after. Must be something about the frequency of the sound, but whatever the case, the pheasants made wonderful I-pods and certainly stimulated a rail to sing. There are some interesting questions about the presence of a highly territorial, heavily vocalizing Black Rail (rails?) in early June in what was once perhaps the finest wet prairie ecosystem in Ohio. Only 100-150 or so years ago, the Pickaway Plains, of which Charlie's Pond and some smidgens of associated habitat remain about the only surving pieces, would have been a radically different place. Charlie's Pond would have been but one of an abundance of wet prairie sloughs surrounded by seas of prairie grass. It wouldn't be a stretch to speculate that Black Rails may have historically nested in this region. In the last decade, we've seen a return of some former prairie breeders like Wilson's Phalarope to former Ohio prairie sites where large wetland restoration projects have been done. It may be no coincidence that about 600 acres or more immediately adjacent to the prairie swale where the Black Rails are was put into the Conservation Reserve Program two years back, and is now a sea of Indian Grass. Although the rails won't use that, the addition of this massive prairie buffer in essence increased the size of the prairie they occupy many-fold. Everyone should get down there to hear these birds, even though the chance of seeing them is quite slim. And everyone should take pains to not do anything to disturb them, and remain on the roadway and out of the wetlands. This will be an interesting case to follow. Somewhat overshadowed by the rails was a singing Alder Flycatcher on the north side of Radcliff Rd. in the same swale. And there are at least a dozen territorial Dickcissels in the aforementioned CRP/Indian Grass fields, best heard and seen by following Radcliff to River Rd, and turning left. The Dickcissels were all along that stretch of road. Jim Jim McCormac Columbus, Ohio Like nature? Visit my blog: http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/ Like birds? Join the Ohio Ornithological Society: http://www.ohiobirds.org <http://www.ohiobirds.org/> ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]