 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 . 
