Rediscovery and Status of a Disjunct Population of Breeding Yellow Rails in Southern Oregon

Abstract

Yellow Rails (Coturnicops noveboracensis) breed in shallow wetlands throughout the north-central portions of the interior United States and adjacent areas in southern Canada (AOU 1983). Additionally, there are historic nest records for Yellow Rails from Mono County in eastern California in 1922, 1939, 1947 and 1950 (Grinnell and Miller 1944, McCaskie et al. 1980), and two nest records from Klamath County in southern Oregon, one each at Aspen Lake and Shoalwater Bay in 1926 (Griffee 1944, Contreras 1993). Between 19501980, Yellow Rails were not recorded at historic breeding locations in California or Oregon, and it was generally agreed that breeding populations of this species had been extirpated from the western United States (AOU 1983, Roberson 1980). On 19-20 June 1982, however, Yellow Rails were heard at the Fort Klamath Historic Monument in