During September 2024 Amran Saltali discovered a pair Snoring Rails which were feeding with some regularity in a few small pools along a small limestone based sandy stream. He constructed a hide which overlooked the stream, during the construction the rails continued to feed in the pools even when he noisily dropped things during its construction.

One thing that has become apparent is that female appears to be the brighter plumaged sex, this is most unusual and in fact the only rail species to be a polyandrous species where sexual dimorphism is reversed. The brighter one certainly does most of the incubating. The old specimens again label the brighter ones as female. I am really interested to know why this is the case with this species, clearly a lot more to discover about this extraordinary species.

Pair of Snoring Rails, Amran Saltali

Waiting for some Snoring action

The regular feeding area

Snoring Rail taken on December 23rd by Alan Lewis

I visited on 19^th January 2025 feeling optimistic about my chances of finally seeing them after I had poor views in 2017. Two and a half days I sat in that hide with not a sniff of any Snoring Rails, my mood was not good. I am constantly told  by my birding colleagues whilst waiting for difficult or secretive species not to wonder off and stay put, I did stay put for 25 hours but enough is enough and along with Khalab, Darson and Amran  I said let’s explore further downstream, so a trail was cut to bypass the small waterfall and we was soon back walking along the limestone based stream, the water was low level and was mainly small pools and eventually is disappeared completely and was just a sandy dry bed. We stayed around this area and eventually we heard a Snoring Rail doing its mmmm call, game on! By now it was about 1600, and we felt sure there was a chance of seeing them, we thought about making a hide where the river had a right-angle bend so we could see both stretches. I had been wandering off downstream hoping to see something, Amran had wandered further and without saying anything to us he had flushed what he thought was a Snoring Rail from a tree base, he returned to us and sat and enjoyed a cigarette. He snuck off aging without saying anything, the next thing I knew he was showing Khaleb the back of his camera then he let out a mighty cry of laughter which naturally caught my attention, unbelievably he had photographed one on the nest. Being extremely keen to see the nest I asked Amran to show me, unbelievably there it was.

First ever photograph of Snoring Rail eggs, the eggs measured 55mm x 40mm, the nest is 15cms wide and 33cms from the back of the tree to front of the nest.

As the nest was on one side of the river, I suggested we build a hide overlooking it on the opposite side as it was a steep slope and a good vantage point. Darson and Amran quickly cut a trail and made a blind with some palm leaves and there I waited, dusk was fast approaching, and I was scanning using my thermal, I could see a Snoring Rail walking behind the nest and then below so I put my binoculars on it and could see her return onto the nest, my first proper sighting. We sat there until after dark and quietly slipped away leaving her to incubate.

The next morning was an incredibly wet one, we returned in heavy rain and sat behind our palm blind, through the thermal nothing could be seen, no heat signals at all. As the rain continued to fall heavily, we could hear them calling, we decided to leave and think of another plan.

Khaleb and Amran went to buy some tarpaulin to make another hide, then Khaleb had to return reluctantly to Jakarta. After lunch the rain eased and Amram, Darson and myself returned to the nest, the heat signal was good so incubation had been taking place, so they built a new hide and as soon as the construction was completed and my camera set up she returned to the nest and the monitoring began, the light was poor due to the rain and thick cloud but we all knew we were witnessing something special. I made following observations.

1420 female came onto nest.

1554 male came and a changeover seen, male now incubating.

1558 both left the nest.

1612 one back briefly

1643 back at nest briefly

1711 back on nest

Snoring Rail changeover

The following morning Darson, Amran and I were sitting in the hide at 0430 keen to witness the behaviour at the nest. The following behaviours were noted.

0430 sitting bird could be seen through thermal.

0600 left the nest.

0614 back briefly

0630 back incubating but only briefly

0717 male on nest

0752 left nest

0816 female incubating

0909 turned eggs.

0921 turned eggs.

1055 turned eggs

1310 another bird heard calling.

1349 stood up and turned eggs.

1429 male appeared, female left, male turned the eggs and sat on nest briefly.

1555 male approaches the nest but never sat.

1557 male back at turned the eggs and left.

24^th January

0510 could see one sitting.

0600 left the nest.

0613 back on for a couple of minutes

0630 sat on briefly.

0718 female sitting

0729 two birds were heard calling for several minutes close to where I was sitting, several good sound recordings were made.

0811 stood up and turned the eggs.

0913 stood up and turned the eggs again.

0950 stood up and preened its belly.

1100 was still sitting and I reluctantly had to leave.