This chicken-like marsh bird, commonly called a moorhen lives in freshwater marshes and can be found in just about every country except Australia and Antarctica. Thre is a very wide division on whether the Common Gallinule should be called the Common Morehen or not. It loves lily pad covered water and uses those large, long, thin toes to walk on top of the pads while it feeds on insects, seeds, and water grasses. The Gallinule in the photo upper left is sitting on the leaf of a lily pad. They’re cousins to the rails and coots. On the second row right is a mother with a new chick.

This colorful little bird loves warm climates and wet marshlands. His diet includes all kinds of insects as well as some of the plants at water’s edge. They tend to select habitats with plenty of lily pads and can be seen hopping from one to the other across the water. The two birds below are immature Purple Gallinules. You can see that their baby feathers of mossy brown are starting to take on the iridescent hues of the adult. Photographed in Lake County, Florida.