1. Migratory Timing and Habitat Use of Fall Migrating Rails Auriel M.V. Fournier – Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit – University of Arkansas Doreen C. Mengel – Resource Science Division – Missouri Department of Conservation David G. Krementz – USGS Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit – University of Arkansas AR Coop Unit / Nick Seeger @RallidaeRule

2. Wetland Management Managing our remaining wetlands is IMPORTANT We assume waterfowl management provides for other species Need to understand the tradeoffs for other wetland obligate species Objective – Document the migratory timing and habitat use of fall migrating rails in Missouri.

3. Rails Sora, Virginia Rail, King Rail and Yellow Rail Migratory Shore and Upland Game Bird Support Task Force for Rails and Snipe Priority Information Need Before that, we have to know when and where.

5. Surveying ATV flushing surveys 3 hours/night AR Coop Unit / Nick Seeger

6. Analysis Generalized Hierarchical Distance Sampling Models  Package ‘unmarked’ in R  gdistsamp function Each year is analyzed separately Models ranked with AIC and the top models (Delta AIC <2) assessed for model fit

7. N = 1895 Sora

9. Virginia Rails 2012 - 33 2013 - 25 2014 - 14

10. Implications Rails migrate earlier than waterfowl We are seeing an extreme ratio of Sora/Virginia Rail Sora are congregating around areas with water early in the season There are differences between different regions of Missouri

11. Future Work One year into three year state wide wetland management experiment to look at the impact of early flooding on rails and waterfowl Stable isotope work to see if differences in timing between regions of Missouri are related to origin from different areas Continue to document as much as we can about other rail species

12. Acknowledgements Funding:  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service  Missouri Department of Conservation  Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit  Garden Club of America  Arkansas Audubon Society Trust Managers:  Craig Crisler, Ron Bell, Darrin Welchert, Chris Freeman, Kenny Ackley, Steve Whitson, Gary Calvert, Ryan Kelly, Mike Flaspohler, Jason Wilson, Mick Hanan, Matt Bowyer, Keith Cordell, Kevin Brunke, Brad Pendley Technicians:  Matt Boone, Leslie Brinkman, Dan Datlof, Jon Fournier, Justin Lehman, Nick Seeger

13. Questions? Presentation : http://doi.org/5ks aurielfournier@gmail.com Twitter - @RallidaeRule aurielmvfournier.com