Purple Gallinule
Purple Gallinule: Medium, chicken-like marsh bird with purple-blue upperparts washed with iridescent green, deep blue underparts. Forehead is pale blue; bill is red and yellow-tipped. Undertail coverts are white. Legs are yellow with very long toes. The flight is labored and slow with dangling legs.
● Song:
"kek, kek, kek", "keee, keee, keee"
● Foraging & Feeding:
Purple Gallinule: Diet consists of invertebrates, frogs, aquatic vegetation, seeds, and berries; forages while walking along the shoreline, wading, and swimming.
● Breeding & nesting:
Purple Gallinule: Five to ten pink or buff eggs marked with brown are laid in a nest made of dead stems and leaves, and built low above the water among dense rushes. Incubation ranges from 22 to 25 days.
● Similar species:
Purple Gallinule: Common Moorhen has white flank stripes and lacks pale blue forehead shield.
● Range & Habitat:
Purple Gallinule: Found in the south Atlantic and Gulf states, and casually as far northward as Maine, New York, Wisconsin, and south throughout the West Indies, Mexico, Central America, and northern South America to Brazil. Preferred habitats include lakes, pools, waterways, and wet marshes.