Delaware Online/Delaware News Journal
Shannon Marvel McNaught
Date Posted: Friday, May 31st

“An elusive, rarely seen and federally threatened waterbird has been detected at Milford Neck Preserve in Kent County.

Audio recorders placed in the preserve for a survey led by a Delaware State University professor of environmental science, Christopher Heckscher, heard the call of the black rail at two different sites on three different dates, a Nature Conservancy news release said. The recordings also offered evidence of other secretive waterbirds, such as other rail species, common gallinules, soras, American bitterns and pied-billed grebes.

“Milford Neck Preserve provides important high-quality habitat for these species, many of which are threatened regionally by sea level rise,” Heckscher said in a statement.

Black rails are tiny, smaller than an American robin, and mostly black with gray breasts, red eyes and white speckles on their backs. They nest in salt and brackish marshes from the Florida to the Mid-Atlantic and along the Gulf Coast.

While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the black rail as “threatened,” the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control classifies it as “endangered.”

The Nature Conservancy owns and manages Milford Neck Preserve, which serves as a “critical function as a protected tidal marsh ecosystem” for migratory birds, the news release said. The black rail recordings “highlight the ecological significance of the preserve,” according to the release.”