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African Finfoot | Podica senegalensis
Afrikaanse fuutkoet | Avesol Africano
The African Finfoot is one of the most sought-after birds in the region: a shy swimmer that sits low in the water along shady river banks, with a long neck, a dagger-shaped red bill and bright red to orange legs with lobed toes. The finfoot family has only three species, spread across Africa, Asia and the American tropics.
Voice
Usually silent. Occasionally a sharp, duck-like skwak in alarm, and a soft grunting or croaking between mates. Voice plays hardly any part in finding the bird.
Recording: Lynette Rudman — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
46–65 cm long; the male is clearly larger than the female. Dark brown above with fine white spots and lines, and a broad, stiff, long tail. The male of the southern subspecies has a slate-grey head and neck with a white stripe along the side of the neck and a grey throat; the smaller female has a browner head, white throat and foreneck and a clear white neck stripe. The bill is bright orange-red, and the legs and lobed toes are bright orange-red, sometimes visible just below the surface as it swims. It swims low in the water with the head jerking back and forth, and when disturbed patters away across the surface. It also clambers onto overhanging branches to rest.
Confusion species
On the water it can recall African Darter Anhinga rufa or Reed Cormorant Microcarbo africanus, but these have a black or dark bill, no red legs and dive more often. Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cristatus has a crest, a white neck and a short tail, and lives on open water rather than under overhanging bank vegetation. With a good view the bright red bill and legs are decisive.
Habitat
Slow-flowing rivers and streams, and also reservoirs and lagoons, always with dense bank vegetation hanging into the water, such as reeds, shrubs and tree roots. It forages in the shade close along the bank, picking insects, crustaceans, snails, frogs and small fish from the water and from branches. The nest is a shallow cup of twigs and reed leaves on an overhanging branch, often where flood debris has piled up.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the region mainly in the east and north: in South Africa along the rivers of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, and further in Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. In northern Botswana and Namibia along the Okavango, Chobe, Kwando and Zambezi, and in Angola along the larger rivers. Absent from the arid west and interior. Beyond the region it occurs over much of sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to Ethiopia.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search from a boat drifting slowly along a shaded bank, in the early morning or late afternoon: on the Chobe at Kasane, the Okavango at Shakawe, the Zambezi above the Victoria Falls, and in South Africa on the Mkhuze and Pongola rivers and the rivers of the Eastern Cape. Look for a low-swimming, red-billed silhouette jerking forward close to the bank.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but everywhere scarce and hard to see, and locally vulnerable to the clearing of bank vegetation, disturbance by boat traffic and pollution or silting of rivers. Densities are low: a single pair holds a long stretch of river.
Scientific name
Podica senegalensis | (Vieillot, 1817)
Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Heliornis senegalensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Podica was introduced in 1831 by Lesson. Podica comes from the Latin podicus, 'of the foot', from the Greek pous, podos, 'foot' — Lesson named the genus for the toes with scalloped lobes. senegalensis refers to Senegal, where the first specimen came from. The specimen the first description was based on came from Senegal.