Habitat Use of Autumn Migrating Sora in the Mississippi Flyway

Sora (Porzana carolina) habitat use during
autumn migration has been poorly studied resulting in limited information upon
which to base wetland management decisions that consider rails and other
waterbirds. We performed nocturnal distance-sampling surveys from ATVs on
eleven state and federal wetland properties in Missouri from 2012-2015. We
examined covariates related to vegetation species percent cover, horizontal structure
and water depth to explain Sora density using hierarchical distance sampling
models in R package ‘unmarked’. Sora density was related to average water
depth, percent interspersion and percent cover of non-persistent moist soil
plants. Questions still remain about how the timing of water impacts Sora
during autumn migration since peak water depths are not reached till late in
migration in the Mississippi Flyway.