Presumed wintering records of Swinhoe's Rail in northern Kyushu

Abstract

Recent studies have revealed that Swinhoe's Rail Coturnicops exquisitus regularly overwinters in the Kanto Plain, Central Japan. Although some studies have suggested that the species also overwinters in other regions in Japan, only a few studies have assessed its status and distributions in winter. Here, we conducted the survey using a call playback method to confirm overwintering of the species at 10 survey sites in Okayama, Tokushima, Kagawa, Saga, and Nagasaki Prefectures, Western Japan. The surveys were conducted from January to February 2021. We confirmed five individuals at two survey sites in Saga and Nagasaki Prefectures, suggesting the species overwintering in Northern Kyushu.