River Crake

The River Crake is a waterbird of the rail family endemic to Yuriba. The elusive birds are so named because they make their habitats in wetter lands around the Yuriba River and other streams.

Physiology

The crake is a plump shorebird of about 35 centimetres in length, and its body is somewhat narrowed laterally to allow it to weave easily through undergrowth. The bird's head and breast are coloured a deep, ruddy brown-red colour, giving way to a buff-white belly flecked heavily with vertical spatterings of black. A deeper brown colour, so dark as to appear black, spans across its back and wings, though its wing feathers are boldly tipped with white. The tail is extremely short, brown-black atop and buff on the bottom. Slaty grey legs of medium length carry it, and its toes are quite long and deft. The bill is narrow and pointed, coloured the same slaty grey as the legs, while the eye is always bright yellow. Juveniles sport buff up towards the chest and lack the black flecking of the adults.

The River Crake bears passing resemblance to the Slaty-legged Crake common across much of east Asia, though the local birds sport darker colours and flecks on the belly rather than barring. The Yuriban bird is also about 10 centimetres larger on average. It's likely the Yuriban population descended from individuals of that species that migrated to Yuriba during the days of the Lily Civilization.

Behaviour

The crake is an elusive bird and seldom seen. It makes its habitat in wetter lands near the forested reaches of the Yuriba River and near other woodland streams through Yuriba, and it's almost never seen in the village or on the beaches of the island. A crake will generally move into an area and claim it as its territory. It sticks to that swath of land, probing in wet mud in search of water bugs to feast on. It also occasionally plucks fruit from sun berry bushes. The crake has adapted to evade foxes and the Artisan Wolf by building its nest in hidden crevices and open spaces in the ground, typically well-hidden by brush. The bird is aggressive when its nest is threatened and will typically react by rearing back, fanning out its wings and hissing loudly in a threat display that's not documented at all in the Slaty-legged Crake; the Yuriban bird appears to have developed the behaviour independently.

The crake is generally welcoming of other crakes. They tend to be polyamorous with crakes living around them, and they tend to cross other crakes' territorial boundaries only when seeking mates. It is almost unheard of for an individual crake to have more than one child with another individual crake, and prolific mothers tend to breed large families with memes from many individuals. Also, many crakes will never lay eggs of their own, while others will lay eggs at a prolific pace. It's unclear how the crakes determine which individuals will accept an egg and which individuals will simply provide memetics, but it seems to be based on incredibly subtle body language cues the birds understand perfectly but most others don't get.