Sora

Adult soras are 19–30 cm (7.5–11.8 in) long, with dark-marked brown upperparts, a blue-grey face and underparts, and black and white barring on the flanks. They have a short thick yellow bill, with black markings on the face at the base of the bill and on the throat. Sexes are similar, but young soras lack the black facial markings and have a whitish face and buff breast. They weigh about 49–112 g (1.7–4.0 oz) and have a wingspan of 35–40 cm. Soras have two common calls: a loud, squeaking "whinny" that decelerates and descends in pitch, often used to advertise territories; and a softer, ascending "ker-wee" or "sor-ah". The latter call is sometimes presented as a possible origin for the species' common name.

The sora is common across North America, naturally occurring in 49 US states (the exception being Hawaii), all 10 Canadian provinces and two Canadian territories. Outside of the US and Canada, the species is found throughout Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. The species has been recorded as a vagrant in Iceland, Great Britain, Portugal, and at Lake Titicaca. Soras breed from Nova Scotia northwest to southern Yukon and Northwest Territories, south to California, Arizona, and New Mexico and northeast to Pennsylvania and New England. Sora wintering grounds include the Caribbean, northern portions of South America, including Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, north through Central America and Mexico to southern California in the West and coastal regions of the Southeast. From southern Kansas south to northern and eastern Texas and east through the inland areas of the southeastern United States, soras are typically only observed during migration in the spring and fall. In a few areas of the western United States, including central California and areas of Arizona and New Mexico, soras may occur year-round. The size of an individual sora's home range varies. Sora brood-rearing home ranges in northwestern Iowa averaged 0.5 acres (0.20 ha). …

Soras eat a wide range of foods. Animals that are commonly reported as sora food items include snails (Gastropoda), crustaceans (Crustacea), spiders (Araneae), and insects (Insecta), mainly beetles (Coleoptera), grasshoppers (Orthoptera), flies (Diptera), and dragonflies (Odonata). Soras often eat the seeds of plants, such as smartweeds, bulrushes, sedges, and barnyard grasses. Seeds of annual wildrice (Zizania aquatica) and rice cutgrass are eaten by soras in the eastern United States. A literature review lists crowngrass (Paspalum spp.) and rice (Oryza sativa) as relatively important food sources for soras in the Southeast. Plants composing less than 5% of the sora's diet are also listed and include spikerushes (Eleocharis spp.), duckweeds (Lemnaceae), pondweeds (Potamogeton spp.), panicgrasses (Panicum spp.), cordgrasses (Spartina spp.), and saltgrass (Distichlis spicata). Soras eat more plant food in fall and winter (68%–69%) than in spring and summer (40%). Plant material such as hairy crabgrass (Digitaria sanguinalis), fall panicgrass (Panicum dichotomiflorum), and bristlegrass (Setaria spp.) occurred at substantially higher frequencies and in much larger volumes in sora esophagi collected in southeastern Missouri during fall migration than those collected in spring. In addition, animals were a larger volume of the spring diet than the fall diet. …