The Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) is a slate-black marsh bird with a bright red bill base and yellow bill tip, a member of the rail family that keeps half-hidden at the reed edges of ponds, ditches and lakes. The body is dark slate-grey with a brownish-green back and a distinct broken white line running along the flank. Its most reliable marks are the red bill base and frontal shield with a yellow tip, and yellow-green legs with very long toes that let it walk across floating vegetation; white patches show under the tail, and the bird nods its head and tail characteristically while swimming or walking. Juveniles are brown-grey and lack the adults' red bill marking.
The call is a powerful, somewhat bubbling and explosive "kurr-ruk," along with shrieking and cackling notes, often heard from the reed edge before the bird itself is seen — it is most vocal in spring and early summer. In Sweden the Common Moorhen occurs mainly in the south and centre of the country, with a population of only a few thousand pairs; most birds are short-distance migrants that leave in autumn, though some overwinter at open water further south. It favours nutrient-rich ponds, ditches and lakes with dense reed and shoreline vegetation, and is also a familiar sight on ornamental park ponds. The nest is a platform of plant material built in or close to the reed edge, well hidden near the water surface, and the usual clutch of 5–8 eggs often produces two broods in a season; the precocial chicks can swim early, and older chicks from the first brood sometimes help feed their younger siblings. As an omnivore it eats aquatic plants, seeds, green plant matter, insects and snails, foraging both while swimming and while walking through shoreline vegetation.
Read about this species in Swedish →