Buff-banded Rail taking food from Sandpiper

[brian fleming <>]

Hi Philip,
   Back in October 1985, I was at Heron Island (North Queensland).  The 
local Buff-banded Rail population was just about flightless but very 
tame and confiding, hence very easily observed.  One day at high tide 
only about a metre of beach was exposed and I was watching a Sandpiper - 
Terek from memory - which made a dash and captured one of the 
fast-moving crabs on the beach.  No sooner had it done so, than a 
Buff-banded Rail rushed out of the undergrowth behind the beach and 
snatched the crab from the Sandpiper, then rushed back into the bushes.  
I would class this as active piracy.
  The Rails were in and out of the cabins all the time, and regularly 
ran about in the dining-room in search of scraps.  I understand that 
birds are no longer permitted in the dining-room at Heron Island, on 
hygienic grounds.  Capricorn Silvereyes were also in there  at 
meal-times; lids had to be kept on milk-jugs and sugar-bowls at all 
times. We also had visits from a white Reef Egret, which accepted 
chicken and fish from diners' hands.
Anthea Fleming





On 25/01/2013 3:45 PM, Philip Veerman wrote:
> Today I was at the the rapidly disappearing (as in drying out) Kelly's
> Swamp, in Canberra, one of a small number of local places where many people
> have over the past few weeks enjoyed watching all the crakes etc, from which
> I will extract this bit of text to the cog list:
>   
> One Coot was pecking with no great enthusiasm at what might be the decaying
> remains of a fish (or just some biological flotsam). Another Coot standing a
> few cm away. The Buff-banded Rail approached between them and began picking
> little bits of whatever it was, out of the Coot's beak. This went on about
> 30 seconds. As in I think 3 times the Coot bent down to shake off a little
> bit of whatever it was and when it lifted its head the Buff-banded Rail
> pecked at the bits hanging out the side of the Coot's beak. The Coots didn't
> seem overly concerned and walked off.  The Buff-banded Rail continued
> picking over this bit of whatever it is for another 30 seconds then wandered
> off.  Over the next 10 minutes or so they and several of the Crakes walked
> past this bit of whatever again and were not interested. They were actively
> feeding on many other things.
>   
>  From one of the hides the highest simultaneous count I got to was 8 Spotted
> Crakes (at least 4 or 5 in view for the whole 30 minutes or so that I was
> there), as well as two Spotless Crakes and one Buff-banded Rail seen so many
> times and in so many places that I suspect there were 2 or 3. The Spotless
> Crakes spend much shorter time out in the open mud than the others and one
> ran back into the reeds when a Willie Wagtail flew over it.
>   
> Philip
>   
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