Expert: Julia Booth - 7/28/2009

Question
QUESTION: Please identify this bird for me.

ANSWER: Given your location I would have to say, Water Rail, of the Southeast Asian variety.

Let me know if that's not it.



Julia

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I am from a small island in the Republic of Maldives.Pls Search for vaikaradhoo in google earth.These birds are rarely seen in my island past 8 years. What i know is its not a water rail. Water Rail has  a long (3-4.5 cm) slim reddish bill. Legs are yellowish and Adults are 23-26 cm long. This is quit smiler to water rails it has green bill and green legs.Eyes are red.Adults are not bigger than 10 to 12cm.They are not very friendly.They usually live in Mangroves but rarely comes to places where people live.

Answer
Okay I honestly usually only handle questions regarding North American birds. I'm familiar enough with taxonomy that I can usually track down the ID of a foreign bird.

But I first went through the checklist of birds found in Maldives and there isn't a single one on it that matches that picture. So then I went through the list of birds found in India, checking only likely candidates, and there were also no close matches.

Body shape suggests something from the family Rallidae. Bill shape and eye color also implies the possibility of Cuculidae.

But you may have members of families in Asia that we don't have here in the US. You know your country better than I do. So it would probably be easier for you to do the footwork here. I've already spent a few hours on this and I'm sad to say I've come up with nothing.

Start here, if you haven't already:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_the_Maldives
www.birdlist.org/india.htm
www.indiabirdwatching.com/
www.birdlist.org/maldives.htm


Sorry I couldn't help you more. Let me know if there's anything else I can do,

Julia