Clapper Rail

(Rallus longirostris)

image © David Sarkozi, Houston Texas, 1997

Last updated 6/22/98

Clapper Rail are common residents of the salt marshes of the UTC. If you stay until sunset you are almost certain to hear their "kek kek kek kek" call.

Hearing one is easy; seeing one is a little harder. Like all rails they are very shy. Most of your glimpses will be fleeting. To me Clapper Rail look shaggier and a lot grayer than the very similar King Rail. The King is more cinnamon colored and the Clapper has much grayer checks.

Clapper Rails stick to the salt marshes and very rarely enter brackish marshes. The King Rail inhabits freshwater marshes and sometime brackish (hybrids in the brackish zone are known).

Good places to see Clapper Rails are Anahuac NWR at end of Westline Road, Bolivar Flats at the marsh/flats boundery, and Galveston Island SP on the bay side of the park. The place I know is Yatch Basin Road in Gilcrest on the Bolivar Pennisula. This road is just south of the Claude's Hardware Store in Gilcrest. A drive down list road anytime usually produces at least a couple of Clapper Rails. I have counted as many as 47 on this half mile road.

A breeding range map is available form the Breeding Bird Survey
A winter range map is available from the Christmas Bird Count

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