Guide to North American Birds
Conservation status Has declined or disappeared in many areas because of loss of habitat. Also hurt by runoff of farm chemicals into wetlands. Numbers may be stable now at lowered population.
Family Rails, Gallinules, Coots
Habitat Fresh and brackish marshes, rice fields, swamps. Sometimes salt marshes in winter. Will use a variety of habitats with shallow fresh or brackish water and dense cover. Important plants include cattails, bulrushes, spartina, and others. May be in brushy swamps with many willows, or in flooded rice fields.
A chicken-sized marsh bird, the largest of our rails. Nesting in fresh-water marshes of the east, the King Rail has become an uncommon species as many wetlands have been drained. It remains locally common near the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where it is not especially shy, often stalking about at the marsh edge in full view of observers. Closely related to the Clapper Rail, and may interbreed with it in zones where salt and fresh marshes meet.

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Feeding Behavior

Mostly forages in shallow water, in or close to dense marsh cover. Large items (such as big crayfish or crabs) may be carried to solid ground and dismembered before being eaten.


Eggs

Usually 10-12, sometimes 6-14. Pale buff, lightly spotted with brown. Incubation is by both sexes, 21-23 days. Young: Downy young leave nest a few hours after hatching. Both parents feed young; after about 3 weeks, young start to pick up much of their own food. While young are small, adults may brood them at simple nest platforms near where they hatched. Young are able to make short flights at about 9-10 weeks. May have two broods per year in south.


Young

Downy young leave nest a few hours after hatching. Both parents feed young; after about 3 weeks, young start to pick up much of their own food. While young are small, adults may brood them at simple nest platforms near where they hatched. Young are able to make short flights at about 9-10 weeks. May have two broods per year in south.

Diet

Mostly insects and crustaceans. Diet includes many aquatic insects, especially beetles. Eats many crayfish and crabs, and sometimes many small fish. Also eats snails, clams, grasshoppers, frogs, spiders, and seeds of aquatic plants.


Nesting

In courtship, male walks about with tail raised, showing off white under tail coverts. Male may feed female. Nest site is in a clump of grass or sedges, usually about a foot above water or land. Nest (apparently built mostly by male) is a solid platform of grass, sedges, other marsh plants, with a canopy woven over the top and a ramp leading down from the entrance. Additional simpler nest platforms may be built nearby.

Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
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Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds

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Migration

Withdraws from most of northern and inland part of range in winter. Apparently migrates at night.

  • All Seasons - Common
  • All Seasons - Uncommon
  • Breeding - Common
  • Breeding - Uncommon
  • Winter - Common
  • Winter - Uncommon
  • Migration - Common
  • Migration - Uncommon

See a fully interactive migration map for this species on the Bird Migration Explorer.

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Songs and Calls

A harsh, clattering kek-kek-kek-kek-kek, almost identical to that of Clapper Rail.
Audio © Lang Elliott, Bob McGuire, Kevin Colver, Martyn Stewart and others.
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How Climate Change Will Reshape the Range of the King Rail

Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.

Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.

Climate Threats Near You
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Climate threats facing the King Rail

Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.