I found a young PURPLE GALLINULE at Montezuma today. It was an immature bird, but had largely purple chest. It was in the main pool, approximately half way between the second interpretive sign on the drive and the spillway (carp spot). It was in a line of vegetation in one of the first two or three open water spots along the drive. Along most of the drive the vegetation is too thick to see any water. Eventually a channel opens up between the drive and the thick cattails. In that channel are lines of planted duck food, the name of which escapes me at the moment. The gallinule was feeding actively in that sparse line of vegetation. I was cruising down the main drive and saw some coots, which made me think about the rail tail-flicking video I want for the birding-by-behavior online course I'm working on for the Lab. As I passed a little window onto some water I caught an image of a bird out of the corner of my eye. It was standing on vegetation about 5 inches off the water and it flicked its white tail as I passed. That little voice in my head that I have learned to trust said "gallinule." I stopped and backed up, thinking that it must be a moorhen, but that would be good too as I could photograph it tail-flicking. As I backed up I thought to myself that being up in the vegetation like that is really a Purple Gallinule thing, not a moorhen. When I got back to it, it was clambering around on top of vegetation and I knew it was a Purple Gallinule before I ever saw its rich, tawny brown head, greenish wings, and partially purple chest contrasting against a white belly. I watched it feed actively for two hours before Gary Kohlenberg finally showed up and I could hand it off to someone. During that time I never had a completely open view of the bird; there was always some vegetation between us. This could be a very, very tough bird to relocate. I could have driven by it a thousand times before without noticing. It was just the luck of seeing it up off the water and having it tail-flick that put me on it. It was often out of sight climbing up into thicker vegetation. Purple Gallinules can swim and often wade, but they seem to prefer to keep their feet out of the water. In addition to climbing, this bird used its feet to push down stalks of the vegetation to get to seeds. I took nearly 1,000 photos, almost all of which were pure crap because of the intervening vegetation, combined with my inexperience digiscoping with my new digital SLR and the rapid decline of my standby Canon Sureshot point-and-shoot. (Unfortunately there is no clear successor in the p-a-s world; digiscoping could be a thing of the past!) I have put a few of the best at http://picasaweb.google.com/KevinJ.McGowan/PurpleGallinuleMontezumaNWROct2010.
Description: The medium-short triangular bill, compact body, long legs with long toes, and short pointed tail that was often flicked up made it a "gallinule" sensu lato. It had a brownish face and neck, extending smoothly from the whitish throat to the warm ruddy brown of the nape. I have always loved the "soft" look this creates on young Purple Gallinules. The wings were dark with a greenish sheen when seen well, which was infrequently. The chest was blotched with bluish purple across the upper chest and along the sides, which contrasted strikingly with the white belly feathers and those of the chest that had not yet changed. The bill was dull-colored, and just seemed dusky in the field unless the light was directly on it. Then, and as shown by photographs, it was distinctly two-toned, with a reddish base and a dull yellowish distal half. It had a prominent frontal plate on the forehead that was most noticeable when the sun reflected off it. It was dull, dark, and dusky, of no particular color, although it was shiny. It covered almost half the forehead, and was pointed at the upper end. The eye color was not particularly noticeable in the field, but the photos show a medium brown (similar to the face) with the pupils obvious. When it raised the short, triangular tail in the action I was interested in, the undertail was pure white, instead of the white-with-black-in-the-middle of Common Moorhen or American Coot. I am not sure that I ever had a clear view of the legs, but the impression I got was that they were yellowish. Purple Gallinule is a very rare bird in New York with only a couple dozen records, and I can only remember 2 other records in the Cayuga Lake Basin offhand, both at Montezuma. I have only ever seen one in the state, a juvenile that was at Montezuma at least from the end of September 2002 through the middle of October. I have photos of that bird at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/purplegallinule.htm. Interestingly, the photo of that bird from 12 October showed it with no purple on the chest at all. Quite different than the bird I saw today. Kevin Kevin J. McGowan Ithaca, NY 14850 -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
