Sora Rail
John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Pennsylvania
John Heinz at Tinicum and Philadelphia, the nation’s first urban national wildlife refuge, is a national treasure. Over the years, I’ve seen or heard Sora a fair many times, but rarely as well as this bird—one of a trio that lingered in the marshes for a few weeks. Like many rails, Soras seem to alternate between extremely furtive behavior and carefree boldness. Repeat visits and long waits resulted in many pictures of this bird, but few without intervening foliage. Soras are very good at scurrying back into the shadows, and this one seemed more worried about an occasional and high-flying Osprey than about me.