My first sighting of a gallinule was around twenty years ago at Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge. It was a Purple Gallinule, and utterly unmistakable: violet head, neck, and breast blending to green on the back and wings; long, yellow legs; red-and-yellow bill; ruffled white undertail feathers; and a chicken-like gait and stance. I later saw Common Gallinules (then called Common Moorhens—they were split from the Old World species in 2011), as well. I had heard them calling at a heronry in south-central Mississippi before that, but had not seen them. As it turns out, even though gallinules may be less secretive than their cousins, the rails, they don’t always make themselves obvious.
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| Perfect gallinule habitat -- and a gallinule in the upper right corner. |
However, this time of year—late summer—is one of the best times to look for them. Both Common and Purple Gallinules can be found on many ponds and lakes in the southeastern United States. They need lots of aquatic vegetation on which to build their nests and search for food. In the summer months, they are surprisingly active and vocal, and often have chicks in tow.
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| This Common Gallinule swims with its three young. |
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| This Purple Gallinule stays with its chick. |
Gallinule clutch sizes are fairly large; eight is a typical number of eggs, although, obviously, not all of the chicks will survive to adulthood. In the video below, you can see three Common Gallinule young swimming with the adult.
Gallinules consume a variety of foods, including aquatic vegetation and invertebrates. Their long toes enable them to walk on floating vegetation (generally lily and lotus pads) while foraging. They sometimes pluck insects and snails from the undersides of leaves, as you can see in the following video of a Purple Gallinule chick:
Because their nesting period is generally in the spring, their young are pretty far along in development by this point. It also helps that they are born semi-precocial, rather than altricial. This means that, unlike songbird chicks, they are feathered and have their eyes open. Unlike precocial Killdeer chicks, though, they still stay in the nest for a day or so and must be fed by their parents for several days. Once out of the nest, they can climb through vegetation using the tiny claws on their wings. This is a feature of birds in Rallidae, the rail family.
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| This Purple Gallinule chick is stretching its wings. |
It takes several weeks for gallinule chicks to learn to fly, and it could be argued that they are never truly comfortable with that skill! On lakes and ponds, gallinules generally fly for only short distances, but some North American populations do migrate from breeding territories to wintering grounds in southern North America or Central America. The vast majority of Common and Purple Galinules actually occur in South America, where they are permanent residents.
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| An immature Purple Gallinule -- old enough to be away from its parents, but not old enough for adult plumage. Note the white undertail coverts, though. Adult birds have these, too. |
Some of my favorite places to see gallinules are Noxubee NWR and Ross Barnett Reservoir. Of course, there are many other areas to look, and, if you go exploring, you just might discover a new hotspot.
Bannor, B. K. and E. Kiviat (2020). Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.comgal1.01.
West, R. L. and G. K. Hess (2020). Purple Gallinule (Porphyrio
martinica), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill,
Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.purgal2.01.
