[EBB Sightings] Fw: RE: Calling Black Rail at Coyote Hills RP

Hi all:
As Ken Schneider's agent, I expect a full 40% of any fees, royalties or other income pouring out of Coyote Hills from the Black Rail episode of 2009. Bob

Ken responds:
> From: Ken S. 
> Subject: RE: Calling Black Rail at Coyote Hills RP

> Although I appreciate the comments from some of our local
> experts, I would encourage folks to get out there and
> actually listen to this rail for themselves (I'm hoping,
> of course, that it continues to vocalize in the same
> location).  Although I must admit that I don't have
> prior field experience with Black Rails, I have listened
> carefully to our more common local rails (Sora, Virginia
> Rail and Clapper Rail) for the last couple of years and have
> listened hundreds of times to the rail vocalizations on the
> Cornell Lab and Stokes recordings.  The rail vocalizations I
> heard this morning were a near-perfect match with the Black
> Rail vocalizations on these audio CD's and I can't
> find anything else on these recordings or on BNA online,
> including the "kick-er" vocalization of Virginia
> Rail and the "kek-burr" vocalization of the
> Clapper Rail, that matches what I heard very well.  
> However, I respect the fact that this is a rarely reported
> bird and it's hard for me to rule out a seldom-heard
> variant of one of the other rails.
>  
> Unfortunately, I don't have recording equipment, so
> I'm hoping some local birders will attempt to
> re-find/hear this bird and confirm or refute my observation.
>  Either way, it was an exciting day! :)
>  
> Ken Schneider  
> 
> P.S.  Given the doubts about this observation and the
> opinion of local experts that I may have heard one of our
> more common rails, I'm posting more details of the
> location to encourage birders to try and find this bird.  
> 
> My GPS coordinates along the road were:  N - 37 deg 33.134
> min; W - 122 deg 04.762 min.  It should be accurate to
> within about 20 feet, although I've only gotten my GPS
> unit recently and I hope this works OK - my GPS is set to
> the default WGS 84 datum.  In plain English, if you walk
> along the main entrance road about 100 yards or so west of
> the main entrance gate, I heard the putative black rail on
> the right (north) side of the road just after the
> shrubs/trees give way to an open view of the marsh.