Listen to the water rail
Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.
About the water rail
The water rail is a bird in the family Rallidae (order Gruiformes). Its conservation status on the IUCN Red List is “least concern”. Adults have a wingspan of about 42 cm and weigh around 125 g.
What does the water rail sound like?
Most birds have two kinds of vocalisation: songs, which are learned or innate phrases delivered mainly in spring and summer, and calls – brief contact, alarm and begging notes heard all year round. Listening for both helps with identification.
The recordings here are labelled as call, nocturnal flight call, song and flight call. Listen for differences in rhythm, pitch and repetition – the spectrum display makes it easy to see whether a sound is a pure whistle (a thin line), a harsh call (a broad band) or a trill (rapid repeated marks).
From Wikipedia
The water rail, western water rail or European water rail (Rallus aquaticus) is a bird of the rail family which breeds in well-vegetated wetlands across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Northern and eastern populations are migratory, but this species is a permanent resident in the warmer parts of its breeding range. The adult is 23–28 cm (9–11 in) long, and, like other rails, has a body that is flattened laterally, allowing it easier passage through the reed beds it inhabits. It has mainly brown upperparts and blue-grey underparts, black barring on the flanks, long toes, a short tail and a long reddish bill. Immature birds are generally similar in appearance to the adults, but the blue-grey in the plumage is replaced by buff. The downy chicks are black, as with all rails. The former subspecies R. indicus has distinctive markings and a call that is very different from the pig-like squeal of the western rails, and is now usually split as a separate species, the brown-cheeked rail.
Related birds in the genus Rallus
More from the family Rallidae
Eurasian coot
Fulica atra
Common moorhen
Gallinula chloropus
Corn crake
Crex crex
Spotted crake
Porzana porzana
Baillon's crake
Zapornia pusilla
Western swamphen
Porphyrio porphyrio
White-breasted waterhen
Amaurornis phoenicurus
Takahē
Porphyrio hochstetteri
American coot
Fulica americana
Weka
Gallirallus australis
Ruddy-breasted crake
Zapornia fusca
Frequently asked questions
What does a water rail sound like?
You can hear 6 recordings of the water rail on this page, including its call, nocturnal flight call and song. Most birds have two kinds of vocalisation: songs, which are learned or innate phrases delivered mainly in spring and summer, and calls – brief contact, alarm and begging notes heard all year round.
Is the water rail endangered?
The IUCN Red List classifies the water rail as “least concern”.
What family does the water rail belong to?
The water rail (Rallus aquaticus) belongs to the family Rallidae in the order Gruiformes.
Sources & credits
- Call · Steinfurt (near Münster), Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen… by Franz Lindinger – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Song · Le Bourget-du-Lac, Savoie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France by Tommy Andriollo – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Flight call, nocturnal flight call, piglet-call · Arnhem, Arnhem, Gelderland, Netherlands by Joost van Bruggen – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Nocturnal flight call · Oviedo, Asturias, Principado de Asturias, Spain by Luis Alvarez Menendez – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Call · Fanel BE, Switzerland by Pascal Christe – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Flight call, nocturnal flight call · Arnhem, Arnhem, Gelderland, Netherlands by Joost van Bruggen – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Wikidata Q185099 – CC0
- Wikipedia: Water rail – CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo by JoachimKohler-HB – CC BY-SA 4.0