Re: crakes

[(Danny Rogers)]

At 12:51 PM 13/11/97 +1100, John Leonard wrote:
>And of course the shyness.abundance thing does depend on where in the range
>of the species you are. On some sub-Antarctic islands where Lewin's Rail is
>the top terrestrial predator they wander around in daylight right out in the
>open and appear to be unafraid of humans.
>

There must be some error here; did you mean another bird? My understanding
was that the only subantarctic island population of Lewin's Rail is the
Auckland Island Rail (subspecies meulleri) which is pretty nearly invisible;
it avoided detection between 1864 and 1966, and it only recently became
clear in the 1990s (through fancy trapping excercises) that it is still
quite common in its very restricted range in dense herbfields and the like
of Adams and Disappointment Island.