It happened on a rainy morning in an Oakland marsh. The pickleweed parted, and with an unceremonious splash, a mottled, fat waterfowl plopped into the slough. It was a California clapper rail, the $1 ...

If clapper rails were humans, their grandparents wouldn’t like them as youngsters. They directly contradict that old axiom about how well-mannered children should act — being often heard, but seldom ...