Water rail
Water rails are omnivorous, although they mainly feed on animals. These include leeches, worms, gastropods, small crustaceans, spiders, and a wide range of both terrestrial and aquatic insects and their larvae. Small vertebrates such as amphibians, fish, birds and mammals may be killed or eaten as carrion. Vertebrates are impaled with a strike of the bill which breaks the prey's spinal cord. Plant food, which is consumed more in autumn and winter, includes the buds, flowers, shoots and seeds of water plants, berries and fruit. In south Asia, paddy (harvested rice kernels) may sometimes be eaten. The young rails are fed mainly on insects and spiders. Food obtained on land or from mud is normally washed in water before it is eaten. After rain, rails may probe soft ground for earthworms. This species will occasionally feed in the open even when not forced to do so by cold weather; Edmund Meade-Waldo described seven rails feeding in an open meadow. Despite its skulking nature, the water rail appears to thrive in captivity when fed on animal food such as raw meat or earthworms; one individual was taught to jump for worms suspended from a fishing rod.
Water rail
The water rail is a vocal species which gives its main call, known as "sharming", throughout the year. This is a series of grunts followed by a high-pitched piglet-like squeal and ending in more grunts. It is used as a territorial call, alarm and announcement. Members of a pair may call alternately, the male giving lower and slower notes than his partner. The courtship song, given by both sexes, is a "tyick-tyick-tyick" often ending with a trill from the female; the male may sing for hours. The flight call is a sharp whistle, and other vocalizations include a loud repeated creak given by the male when showing the nest site to the female, and a purring given by both parents when at the nest with chicks. The rails are most vocal when setting up a territory and early in the breeding season, when calling may continue at night. Chicks initially cheep weakly, but soon develop a "tyk-tyk-trik" begging call.