Alternate name: Common Gallinule

Family: Rallidae, Rails, Gallinules, Coots view all from this family

Description 13" (33 cm). A duck-like swimming bird that constantly bobs its head while moving. Adult slate-gray, with conspicuous red frontal shield and red bill with yellow tip. White stripe on side; white undertail coverts. Young birds similar but duller, without colorful bill.

Habitat Freshwater marshes and ponds with cattails and other aquatic vegetation.

Nesting 7-14 cinnamon or buff eggs, lightly spotted with brown, on a shallow platform of dead cattails, rushes, and other marsh plants, usually a few inches above water level.

Range Breeds in California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, and from Minnesota east to New Brunswick and south to Gulf Coast and Florida. Winters in California, Arizona, and along Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Virginia to Texas. Also in American tropics and in Old World.

Voice   Squawking and croaking notes similar to those of coots.

Discussion Like coots, Common Moorhens are rails that often swim in open water, bobbing their heads as they cross a pond or pool. This bird owes its wide distribution to its choice of a common habitat and a varied diet. Almost any open water fringed by marsh plants will do, and these birds eat mosquitoes, spiders, tadpoles, insect larvae, fruits, and seeds. Their long toes enable them to swim in water or walk on floating marsh vegetation with equal ease. Males build several nests on the pair's territory; once the young have hatched and left their original nests to wander through the marsh, they use these extra nests as places to spend the night.