Habitat Use of Autumn Migrating Sora in the Mississippi Flyway

Sora (<i>Porzana carolina</i>) 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.