The sora, sora rail or Carolina crake (Porzana carolina) is a small waterbird of the rail family Rallidae, sometimes also referred to as the sora rail or sora crake, that occurs throughout much of North America. The genus name Porzana is derived from Venetian terms for small rails, and the specific carolina refers to the Carolina Colony. The common name "Sora" is probably derived from a Native American language.
They migrate to the southern United States and northern South America. The sora is a very rare vagrant to western Europe, where it can be confused with spotted crake. However, the latter species always has spotting on the breast, a streaked crown stripe, and a different wing pattern.
Soras forage while walking or swimming. They are omnivores, eating seeds, insects and snails. Although soras are more often heard than seen, they are sometimes seen walking near open water. They are fairly common, despite a decrease in suitable habitat in recent times. The call is a slow whistled ker-whee, or a descending whinny.
Taxonomy
The sora was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the rails in the genus Rallus and coined the binomial name Rallus carolinus. Linnaeus based his description on the "little American water hen" that George Edwards had described and illustrated in 1750 from a specimen collected near the Hudson Bay. Linnaeus also cited Mark Catesby who had described the "soree" in his The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. The sora is now placed in the genus Porzana that was erected in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis-Pierre Vieillot. The genus name is derived from Venetian terms for small rails, the specific epithet refers to the Carolina Colony. The common name "Sora" is probably derived from a Native American language. The species in monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
