Morgan Run was as slow today as Hashawa was yesterday but for (you guessed it) one bird. 
On my way back to the parking lot along the main drag thru the Goldenrod fields studded with a lot of bushes, I spooked a bird to my left that popped up out of the weeds and onto a small bush, where he seemed somewhat precariously perched. I knew right away it was a rail and since he was sitting up where I could get the bins on it I discovered a definite adult VIRGINIA RAIL. Beak was too long for a Sora and the whole bird was too small for Clapper or King. Nice gray face with brown wings and that mottled gray and white flanks. Nice look.

Now somebody explain to me what it was doing out of the usual marsh/swamp and in a field of goldenrod. I know this is migration but don't they usually put down in more familiar habitat?

Also had a BROADWING HAWK down near the pond and when I got home there was a COOPER'S in my own yard.

Jerry Tarbell
Railed in Carroll County