Ok, me and my Uncle were fishing yesterday. We were near the shore of a cow pasture that abutts the water. We heard what I thought at first was a duck. The sound reminded me of the weird, fast paced put-put-put-put-put I hear the duck callers use on TV....what I believe they call a feeding put for mallards. But when we eventually fished our way over to that shore we saw a strnge bird we never saw before and cant identify. That bird was making the funny little put-put sound and it let us get to within 10 yards of it before flying off. about 30 yards and landing in a tangle of marshy tall grass. Here is the best description I can give:
It looks similar to this bird, the king rail
BUT, it had a blue crest on its head, a crest that sort of looks like a kingfishers, but not extending all the way down the base of the neck, and it had a thinner body like a cormerant. It was small like this bird, the King Rail. But we were fishing a freshwater pond in the middle of southern New Hampshire. The wings, I dont think, had the striping like the King rail, and the features underneth the wings were more spotted than lines. Thats all the info I can remember for now.
Neither of us had a camera, so thats a no go. But this dang bird has got me licked. I searched enature.com and could not find it. Can anyone help?
Brian M.
P.S. It was standing on a rock similar to the bird above, but its neck stuck a little lower and farther out. Best I can remember it had similar looking legs as the above pic (which is why I thought it was some sort of rail.)
