Baillon's Crake

Baillon's Crake (Porzana pusilla) is a tiny rail with short greenish bill, brown patterned upperparts, grey face and strongly barred rear flanks. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It inhabits shallow marshes with dense low vegetation, picking insects and seeds from mud and plant surfaces. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).