Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)
Measurements: 22-24cm long.
The Moorhen is a very amphibious bird, trotting over grass, mud and piles of waterside vegetation with ease, and ascending expertly into the branches of trees – yet also regularly swimming out in the open water. Admittedly it makes heavy weather of its swimming, nodding its head exaggeratedly with each stroke of its feet, like a cyclist labouring uphill. But there is no doubt that it is an adaptable and able species. It occurs in all types of well vegetated freshwater habitats with open water throughout Europe. It has also conquered the Americas, Africa and much of Asia.
By Alexis Lours – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113179548
The range of food taken is very broad. Plant material includes pondweeds and duckweed, as well as the leaves of a great many waterside plants. Animals include the usual worms and insects, plus occasional birds’ eggs. The Moorhen rarely dives, but picks from the surface of the water while swimming, and gleans vegetation, often climbing high into bushes and even trees to do so.
The Moorhen has a very flexible mating and nesting system. Many a pair produces eggs and young by themselves and without incident, but co-operative breeding is quite common. It has long been known that young birds from early broods will help their parents with offspring later in the year, helping to incubate eggs, brood, refurbish the nest and feed the young, for example. But recently it has been discovered that family ties can be stronger still. Two or more females can use the same nest, each contributing their own eggs and sharing parental duties, and it has emerged that these are often blood relatives, mother and daughter, sharing the same male, which may be the younger bird’s father! On other occasions unrelated birds will also co-operate with a nesting attempt, making for a rather complicated social structure in the breeding season.
By Neil Phillips – originally posted to Flickr as moorhen feeds chicks on water, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3819694
Another common practice among Moorhens is known grandly as intraspecific brood parasitism – that is, the laying of eggs in the nest of another individual of the same species. This is not co-operative, but the clandestine version of sharing a nest. Effectively the eggs are planted without permission, and the burden of parenthood shifted on to unsuspecting birds.
It is easy to find a Moorhen nest. It is quite a bulky structure, an open platform of vegetation built into waterside vegetation or placed on the ground near the water’s edge. Usually the male brings the materials and the female builds, and each pair may build several platforms, one for the eggs, and others for the care of the chicks.