Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

At last, a new entry for this column! Here is a Common Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus. In Afrikaans it's known as a Waterhoender or 'Water Chicken'. The 'moor' in the English name is a holdover from old days when it meant 'marsh' rather than what we today think of as moorland. A more appropriate name sometimes given for it is 'Waterhen'. The scientific name means 'green/yellow-legged little chicken'. Despite these names, it is not a chicken, but a member of the Rallidae, the Rail Family, along with rails, crakes, coots and a few other things with chicken-ey names. The rail family is large and diverse, and occurs all over the world. The moorhen, too, is very widely distributed, occurring on all continents except Antarctica, and Australia, where it is replaced by the Dusky Moorhen. The American moorhen has recently been split off into a separate species, the Common Gallinule, but is practically indistinguishable from the common moorhen. A few interesting relatives occur on islands, such as a flightless species on sub-Antarctic Gough Island, and the Makira Moorhen of the Solomon Islands, that hasn't been seen since 1953.

In addition to being abundant, the moorhen is very common. In South Africa, as in many other places, it is one of the most frequently seen wetland birds. It can inhabit pretty much any kind of body of fresh to brackish water fringed by vegetation, except fast-flowing streams. In South Africa it has benefited from the many dams that have been built to secure water supplies for farms. Moorhens can be seen paddling along on the water, or walking on the banks. It swims well despite not having webbed or lobed toes. Its long toes that you can see here, helps it to walk on floating vegetation. Their calls, a variety of clucks, gargles, hisses and chirrups, are common features of wetland ambience. Moorhens are not spectacular, but easily recognizable. Their bodies are dusky blackish-brown, relieved by their bright red, yellow-tipped bills, their greenish-yellow legs with red 'garters' above the ankle joints, a white streak along the side, and white patches underneath the tail. Moorhens flick their tails a lot; this might help birds to stay in visual contact as well as sending a signal of alertness to potential predators. They have a prominent red frontal 'shield', an extension of the top of the bill, as is found in several other members of the rail family as well as some other birds such as jacanas. They are about 30-38 cm/12"-15" in length, and can weigh up to 500 g/a bit over 1 lb.

A big reason why moorhens are common as they are, is because of their versatility in feeding. They can eat many kinds of plants, whether floating in the water, or growing along the banks, snipping off pieces with their stout bills. They eat a variety of small aquatic critters, from insect larvae, molluscs and crustaceans, to fish and occasionally small vertebrates. They can eat while swimming, pecking titbits up from the water surface or submerging their heads to reach something deeper down, or while they walk on land or clamber about vegetation. They can eat eggs from the nests of other waterside birds, and will even eat carrion.

Moorhens also show adaptable breeding behaviour. Mostly, they are monogamous-for-a-season, sometimes monogamous for life. But they also sometimes form trios, whether a male and two females, or a female and two males. Often there are helpers who attend the couple, these typically being their offspring from previous seasons. They build bowl-shaped nests from vegetable matter, and the nests can be anywhere from floating in the water, anchored to the bottom or to submerged vegetation, built amongst plants growing on the banks, or even up in a tree 8 m/26' above the ground. Floating nests may have a ramp of vegetation to allow a swimming bird to climb into it. A moorhen females may parasitize the nests of other moorhens, laying some of her eggs in them and letting the other couple raise them. Nests typically have 5 to 9 eggs but up to 14 have been recorded for a single female; in cases where up to 17 eggs per nest have been found, it is likely that more than one female laid in them. In addition to being able to lay such large clutches, moorhens can even lay three to four clutches in a single year! In South Africa they can breed at any time, not having a specific breeding season. They can thus rapidly make use of the available resources. Both sexes incubate, females typically by day, and males at night. The eggs hatch in about three weeks.

Moorhen chicks are funny little things, with black down covering their bodies except for bare patches on their heads showing red and bluish skin. Their orange-red, yellow-tipped bills are prominent. They also have bare 'wings' that look like little arms with two, pointed 'fingers'. They even have wing claws, and they use these when they clamber into vegetation or onto their nests. They can swim within a day or two after hatching, accompanying their parents who show them where and how to find food. Parents will even carry chicks away in flight when there's danger. They also brood the chicks on the nest from time to time to keep them warm, for the first two weeks. At the age of three weeks, the chicks can forage on their own, and they can fly at the age of 40-50 days.

In South Africa, moorhens will stick to permanent waterbodies or move around to exploit various seasonal ones. In the rest of the world, they can also be resident, or nomadic, or migrant. Especially in the colder northern regions of Europe and Asia, they will fly south when waterbodies freeze over, and spend time in more welcoming climes. All-around, this is an abundant species in no danger of extinction. But there are populations that are not doing so well. In Britain, they are in decline, and the reasons are not yet apparent. Also on some small oceanic islands, they suffer from factors like hunting and habitat destruction. Common or not, we should be on the alert for the wellbeing of these friendly and fascinating birds.

Willem

06.03.23 Front Page

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