Cranes, rails and allies | Gruiformes

Families in this order

• Limpkin | Aramidae1 speciesA family of a single species, the Limpkin, found in Mexico mainly along the Gulf coast and on the Yucatán Peninsula and more widely through Central America, in freshwater marshes, flooded forest, riverbanks and mangroves. It is a large, long-legged bird intermediate in build between cranes and rails, dark brown with white streaks on the head, neck and mantle. The long, slightly decurved bill is laterally compressed, and near the tip the mandibles do not quite meet and the lower one is slightly twisted; with it the bird extracts apple snails from their shells without breaking them. These snails are the staple food, supplemented by freshwater mussels, crayfish, worms and insects. It walks with a rather limping gait through shallow water and flies with slow, jerky wingbeats and dangling legs. The voice is a loud, wailing, repeated scream that carries far across the marsh, especially at dusk and at night. The nest is a platform of plant material in dense vegetation just above the water or in a shrub, usually holding four to seven spotted eggs; the young leave the nest soon after hatching.
• Cranes | Gruidae1 speciesLarge birds with a long neck and long legs which, unlike herons, fly with the neck stretched out; the lengthened inner secondaries droop over the tail as a bustle, drawn out in some species into trailing, hair-fine plumes. In the species of the genus Grus the windpipe is elongated and coiled into the breastbone, which accounts for the far-carrying trumpeting note that a pair often delivers in duet; the crowned cranes lack that loop and instead give a blowing, honking call amplified by a red throat sac. The bill is straight and of moderate length: they feed while walking over grassland, vlei, arable land and flooded plain, digging up tubers and roots and taking seed, insects and small vertebrates as well. In most species the hind toe is small and set high, so they cannot perch in trees; only the crowned cranes have a long, low-set hind toe and roost in treetops. One to three eggs are laid on a heap of plant material in or beside shallow water, and the chick stays with its parents for the first months.
• Finfoots | Heliornithidae1 speciesA small family of three species, each on a different continent: the African Finfoot (Podica), the Asian Masked Finfoot and the American Sungrebe. In Mexico and Central America only the Sungrebe occurs, from southern Mexico to Panama. Finfoots look like a cross between a grebe and a cormorant, with an elongated body, a long, thin neck and a pointed, straight bill, yet they belong with the cranes and rails. The Sungrebe is the smallest of the three, with a black-and-white striped head. The toes carry broad lobes instead of webs and, like the legs, are boldly banded black and yellow. It is a shy bird of quiet, shaded rivers, streams, lagoons and mangroves with overhanging bank vegetation. It swims low in the water with a nodding head, close along the bank, and when disturbed slips away under the vegetation or flies off low over the water. It eats aquatic insects, crustaceans, frogs and small fish, taken from the surface, from branches or on the bank. The nest is a platform of twigs and reeds on a branch above the water. In the Sungrebe the male carries the young, soon after hatching, in skin pockets beneath the wings.
• Rails, gallinules and coots | Rallidae22 speciesThe body is flattened from side to side, so the bird can squeeze between dense reed and sedge; the toes are strikingly long, and lobed in the swimming species. The wings are short and rounded: over short distances they fly with a whirring beat and dangling legs, though many species migrate long distances by night. The short tail is flicked up as they walk, showing the often pale undertail, and the bill ranges from short and conical to long and slender according to the food taken. The nest is a cup of stems and leaves hidden above shallow water; clutches are large, and the black downy chicks follow their parents within a day and are fed bill to bill.