King Rails  This content is archived  Published on: May. 2, 2001
Last revision: Nov. 9, 2010  One morning last June, I visited a
small marsh within the Cape Girardeau city limits. I stepped out
of the car and walked a few steps to the edge of the marsh. My
pulse quickened when I heard a sharp, "kek-kek-kek-kek" close
by. I couldn't believe my good fortune to hear the rare call of
a male king rail. I had heard this mating call in the marshes of
Florida, where king rails are common in some areas, but in
Missouri, it's a rare treat.  A hundred years ago, the song of
the king rail was probably an integral part of Missouri's marsh
music. In 1906, for example, Otto Widmann reported that king
rails were "a fairly common summer resident in the marshes along
the large rivers." In 1919, Harry Harris wrote that king rails
were not an uncommon migrant and a rare summer resident in the
Kansas City area.  Sadly, this is not the case today. The bird I
heard last summer was one of only a handful I have seen or heard
in Miss