Daily Archives: 21/10/2014

Mystery feathers

I found these feathers on Socheong Island on May 26th 2010.  I had found many feathers that year and all were quite easily identifiable- except for these:

AllFeathers

Note that the primaries have quite a distinctive shape:

Primaries1A

-and the (presumed) secondaries fade into white:

PrimariesSecondaries

I have been stumped as to their identity for years- they do not match any online wingspreads or field guides for the region. However today I noticed a photo of a Swinhoes Rail on OBC Images(initially linked to on facebook by Mr J Loghry) and it strikes me how similar the pattern is:

Link below:

http://orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/swinhoes_crake_2_gd.jpg

Perhaps other crakes/ rails have something similar?

Can anyone help as to the identity of this mystery? Opinions welcome!