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Lesser Moorhen | Paragallinula angulata
Afrikaans waterhoen | Gallineta Chica
The Lesser Moorhen is a smaller, shyer and slimmer relative of the Common Moorhen that moves with the summer rains to temporarily flooded marshes and floodplains. It is best identified by the yellow bill with a narrow red ridge.
Voice
A series of soft, rapid, hollow notes, tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk, at times descending, and a short, nasal pyoop. Much less noisy than the Common Moorhen and heard mainly in the breeding season.
Recording: Gary Allport — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 23 cm. The bill is bright yellow with a red culmen that continues into a small, pointed red frontal shield. The eye is red and the legs greenish yellow. The head and neck are slate-grey, the back dark olive-brown, the flanks grey with a narrow, sometimes indistinct white stripe and the undertail white with a black centre. The female is paler and greyer, with a paler throat and a duller shield. Juveniles are pale brown with a whitish throat and belly and a yellowish bill with a dark ridge.
Confusion species
The Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) is clearly larger, has a mainly red bill with only a yellow tip, a larger rounded red frontal shield and a broad, obvious white flank stripe. Juvenile Common Moorhens are larger and greyer than juvenile Lesser Moorhens. Allen's Gallinule (Porphyrio alleni) has a red bill, a blue or green shield and purple-blue and green plumage. The Black Crake (Zapornia flavirostra) is all black with a yellow bill and red legs.
Habitat
Temporarily and seasonally flooded marshes, floodplains, rice fields and dams with plenty of floating and emergent vegetation, such as water lilies, sedges and flooded grass. It moves secretively along the edge of dense vegetation and walks over floating plants. It eats seeds, water plants, insects and snails. It breeds soon after a vlei fills.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
In the rainy season in the north and east of the region: Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, northern Botswana and Namibia, and in South Africa mainly in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal; in wet years further south and west, to the Free State and North West Province. Beyond the region across much of sub-Saharan Africa.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In a wet summer, from December, search newly filled vleis and floodplains with water lilies and flooded grass. The bird comes briefly out of cover mainly early in the morning and late in the afternoon. If in doubt, compare the bill: almost entirely yellow in this species, almost entirely red in the Common Moorhen.
Conservation status
Not threatened and locally common in good rain years. Numbers fluctuate strongly with rainfall. Its habitat suffers from the draining of seasonal marshes, but rice cultivation and new dams provide substitute breeding habitat elsewhere.
Scientific name
Paragallinula angulata | (Sundevall, 1850)
Sundevall described the species in 1850 as Gallinula angulata; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Paragallinula was introduced in 2015 by Sangster, García-R & Trewick. Paragallinula comes from the Greek para, 'beside', and the genus Gallinula — for its resemblance to, yet genetic distance from, the true moorhens. angulata is Latin for 'angled, cornered'; what the name refers to on the bird is unclear. The specimen the first description was based on came from Umlazi River, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.