| Purple Gallinule | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Gruiformes |
| Family: | Rallidae |
| Genus: | Porphyrio |
| Species: | Porphyrio martinicus |
A beautifully colored bird of southern and tropical wetlands, the Purple Gallinule can be see walking on top of floating vegetation or clambering through dense shrubs. Its extremely long toes help it walk on lily pads without sinking.
Appearance[]
Adult Purple Gallinules are a medley of purplish head and body, greenish wings and back, a yellow-tipped red bill, baby-blue frontal shield, and bright yellow legs and feet. Juveniles show very little hint of these colors, being mostly brown above, khaki below, with much duller bill and legs. Immatures acquire their colors gradually in their first year. They're a chicken-sized rail with a heavy conical bill, short tail (often cocked), a compact body, and very long legs and toes.
Behavior[]
Like most rails, Purple Gallinules swim well, and they sometimes perch high in bushes and trees, where their long toes make them agile climbers. As they walk, they often flick the tail up and down like a chicken does. When disturbed they run, swim, or fly away, legs dangling, sometimes landing in trees or shrubs, where they readily climb, balancing with their wings as they move about. They can also dive underwater, remaining hidden except for the bill for long periods. Young birds learning to walk on floating vegetation often appear comical, holding their wings high in the air and racing across the pads quickly when called by a parent. Adults sometimes clash over territories, first posing in erect posture, then chasing and, rarely, striking each other with feet and bills unless one bird assumes a submissive posture. During such fights, birds call loudly. Rival males also sometimes strike a bowing pose during or after conflict, with lowered neck and head, raised body and tail, with wingtips touching over the back. Nonbreeding birds are usually found in areas less suitable for nesting, and they are not territorial. Purple Gallinules often nest in the same areas as Common Gallinules, which appear to be dominant over them.
Feeding[]
Purple Gallinules forage near the water’s edge, where they walk nimbly on muddy margins, or on aquatic vegetation. They hunt a bit like domestic chickens, walking slowly and investigating the vegetation with outstretched neck, or pecking at fruits or tubers. Purple Gallinules eat a wide variety of foods; typically more plants than animals. The water-lily family, including American lotus, produces flowers and fruits that gallinules consume readily, and they also eat flowers, leaves, and tubers of invasive exotic plants such as water hyacinth and hydrilla, as well as rice. Seeds of many different sedges and other aquatic plants such as buttonbush, water willow, sawgrass, smartweed, and pickerel weed are also important food items. Purple Gallinules also prey on spiders, mollusks, beetles, bees, worms, snails, dragonflies, leeches, ants, grasshoppers, and moth larvae, as well as frogs, small fish, and eggs and nestlings of other birds.
Breeding and Nesting[]
Nesting pairs appear to be seasonally monogamous in the United States and defend territories of about 2.5 acres. Nests and their placement vary tremendously: some are loose collections of vegetation made of, and on, floating vegetation, and these move around during windy periods. Others are anchored in reeds or other emergent vegetation, placed near water level or in vegetation as high as 2.6 feet above the water. Purple Gallinules build up to 4 different nests, though only one is used for egg-laying and incubation. Because the sexes are similar, it is not known which sex selects the nest, but both male and female apparently participate in construction. The nest is a roughly cup-shaped platform of rushes, sedges, and grasses, normally fixed into a crotch of standing marsh vegetation or onto floating vegetation. Nests are roughly 11 inches across and 3.5 inches deep. Some nests have a half-roof, to conceal the incubating parent and provide some protection from the elements. Others have a small ramp of vegetation leading to the nest. When young hatch, a parent sometimes moves them to one of the additional nests. 6 to 8 eggs are laid, 1 brood raised per year, incubation is done by both the male and female, and incubation takes around 20 to 25 days.
Distribution and Habitat[]
Purple Gallinules are less distributed in North America than in South America. They inhabit freshwater marshes, mostly places that hold water year-round and that have sedges, grasses, and rushes and especially also dense stands of emergent floating vegetation such as American lotus, water shield, spatterdock, pickerel weed, arrowhead, water pennywort, and various water lilies. These floating plants provide habitat both for foraging and nesting. Nonbreeding birds are often seen in more open environments than breeding birds, which require more extensive aquatic vegetation for suitable nest sites. Purple Gallinules use lakes, ponds, impoundments, reservoirs, and wet rice fields to varying extents, so long as there is food and adequate vegetation for cover and foraging. In South America, migrants have been found in Andean wetlands at elevations as high as 13,385 feet. Migrating individuals crossing the Gulf of Mexico often appear on oil drilling platforms, on barrier island beaches, and in gardens.