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
Prior to its extinction, at least some birds were present year-round on the island, relying on warm volcanic springs to survive through the coldest months, but this race was also found in winter in the Faroe Islands and Ireland, and on passage through the Western Isles, suggesting that the Icelandic form was a partial migrant. The nominate subspecies, "R. a. aquaticus" is resident in the milder south and west of its range, but migrates south from areas that are subject to harsh winters. It winters within its breeding range, and also further south in North Africa, the Middle East and the Caspian Sea area. The peak migration period is September to October, with most birds returning to the breeding grounds from March to mid-April. A specimen of the nominate population labelled as "Baluchistan" and collected by Richard Meinertzhagen is considered of doubtful provenance. "R. a. korejewi" is another partial migrant, with some of the population wintering from Iraq and eastern Saudi Arabia eastwards through Pakistan and northern India to western China.