And of all this mysterious family, the black rail, a 

 bird the size of a sparrow, is the most difficult to see. 

 Birders have been known to drag chains across marshes 

 to force them into flight. As a sporting act, this ranks on 

 about the same level as dynamiting fish, but it gives you 

 an idea of how desperate birders can get for a look at a 

 black rail. 



So the black rail who spent a week under the shrubs 

 on Wooded Island in Jackson Park was a major event. He 

 was there in 1972. I didn't bird the island until two years 

 later, but when we passed the place where the bird had 

 appeared, my guide pointed it out to me. "That's where 

 the black rail was," she said. "It stayed a whole week." 

 Since then, several other birders have told me the same 

 thing. 



That black rail, most anonymous of birds, has, by 



Left: A glimpse across Jackson Park Lagoon to Wooded Island, a neighbor- 

 hood "fixture" since the 1893 World's Fair, when it was created try land- 

 scape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Right: The black rail (Laterallus 

 jamaicensis), probably North America's most elusive bird, was sighted on 

 Wooded Island in 1972 and again in 1986. Below: A profusion of bam 

 swallow (Hirundo rustics) nests occupy the girders supporting bridges to 

 the island. 



13 



Copyright © Leonard Lee Rue Ill/Photo Researchers Inc. 



