Common Moorhen (Gallinule)

Physical Features

The Common Moorhen is a medium-sized member of the rail family found in aquatic environments. It is 12-15 inches in length and has a wingspan of a little less than two feet. It has gray-black feathers and a red bill with a yellow tip. It has white stripes on its sides. It has long chicken-like toes that help it walk on the top of floating vegetation and the mud. Despite lacking either webbed or lobed feet, the Common Moorhen is an excellent swimmer.
Males and females are similar in appearance, but males are a little larger. It is often visually and vocally confused with the American Coot.

Habitat

The Common Moorhen lives in freshwater and brackish marshes, lakes, canals and ponds with cattails and other aquatic vegetation. In the western United States, the Common Moorhen breeds in California, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. In the eastern United States and Canada, it breeds from Minnesota to New Brunswick and south to the Gulf Coast and Florida. In the United States the moorhen winters in California and Arizona, along the Gulf Coast and on the east coast from Virginia to Florida.

It is also found in South America, Europe, and parts of Asia and Africa.

Diet

The Common Moorhen is omnivorous and feeds while walking on plants or while floating on the water. It swims across the water to scoop up floating seeds and other materials from plants floating on the surface of the water. It also dives to gather the seeds, leaves and roots of aquatic plants. On land it walks with a high-stepping gait and pecks at the ground like a chicken. It also eats algae, small fish, tadpoles, insects, berries, grass, snails, insects and worms.

Meat

Common Moorhen  meat is red in color and rather tough in texture.

Behavior

The male Common Moorhen courts the female by bringing her waterweeds and fanning out his tail. The males and the female form a monogamous pair. The pair builds several nests in their territory.  The nests are bowl-shaped and made of twigs, cattail and bulrush stems and grass and sedges and is lined with leaves and other plants. The nest is built within a few feet of water and sometimes it is even built on floating plants in the water. The Common Moorhen may pull down plants growing around the nest to provide a protective cover for the nest.

The female Common Moorhen lays four to twelve eggs, which she incubates for 17-22 days. The chicks are precocial and will leave the nest and feed themselves within a few days of birth. Once all the chicks leave the nest, the Common Moorhens use the extra nests to sleep in at night. Both parents take care of the chicks. They chicks fledge after five to seven weeks. The mating commonly raises more than one brood in a season, using the same nests.

The most common call of the Common Moorhen is a loud, explosive "curruk" vocalization. It also makes another sound similar to a cackling female laugh.

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