Purple Gallinule - Porphyrio porphyrio
I have seen these striking giant rails twice. Once on Mallorca at the Abulfera wetlands in the North of the island near Puerto Pollensa. The second time back in dear old Yala National Park in South East Sri Lanka. I like the alternative name "Swamphen"as they are very very chicken like. The colour is this bluey purple all over with bright coral legs, beak and brow. They are a very upright, quite tall bird and stand out easily even in quite dense water plants. They are the largest rail in the Western Paleartic.
Please do click and blow him up - very fine no ??
Perhaps a quick explanation of the Western Paleartic. For some reason some ornithologists have divided up the world by geological regions and the WP is the huge plate basically that Europe, North Africa and much of the very near or Middle East sits on. Birds of the Western Paleartic (concise edition in 2 volumes raher than the 8 volume tome) (the 'BWP') is the biggest worthy book I own - my King James bible for European birds. Outside of the WP the Purple Gallinule's range extends right through Southern Asia and down to Australia and New Zealand. It is also widespread South of the equator in Africa.
Purple Gallinules are omniverous and feed on the shoots and tubors of aquatic plants as well as invertebrates and so on.
I am sorry but back to this - They really are a draft looking bird - they remind me of that bird in "Up" that forms the object of the plot. Yes a daft big purple swamp chicken. Very endearing. There is some confusion in my books as to the name - there is an American Purple Gallinule which is a similar bird but with yellow legs - "Martinica".
The large family of which Gallinules form a part - Rallidae - has 134 species which inlcudes our home grown coots and moorhens as well as more elusive quarry such as water rails. Given where they hang out - in the middle of a swampy reedbed with plenty of cover I can imagine that I will have some long sessions in hides staking out small open puddles waiting for the shots I need. Thankfully the Purple Gallinule is a little less shy than most although after 48 hours in the Yala I only came away with the one shot so perhaps I was lucky.
Sad news again - one quarter of the world's rail species are 'vulnerable' or 'endangered' - given their lifestyle that must reflect the pressure that man is putting on our wetlands. I always wondered why the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust was needed in some ways when we have the RSPB and so on. When I reflect on the places in the world where I have seen the most 'life' they are Wetlands. When I think of Rhas Al Khor in Dubai it probably holds the biggest concentrations of birds you will see in the Emirate for obvious reasons. Thats a protected site but they seem intent on building all around it - I expect that it will get denuded away bit by bit, dried up and trashed - I hope not - Flamingos on the edge of the desert are a wonderful thing.
A second pressure on rails is that they have made a habit of colonising far flung islands and then losing the power of flight. I have written about island endemics before but when you couple that with an invasion of rats from ships during word war 2 a flightless groundnesting rail doesn't stand much of a chance. Fully 22 species of rail have shuffled off during the era of modern science.
It's the Oscars this weekend. They have that moving montage every year with all the stars and film people who have died. I'd love it one year if they had a change and did a montage of all the birds and animals made extinct in the last 400 years. We'd have to spend a full five minutes on the rails if we gave them all a clip. Some friends we have lost in the last 400 years... Pandas and American Condors are all very glamorous to save - I guess a chicken that lives in a useless swamp or on an island in the backrow of the world just isn't that glamorous.
Hang in there Rallidae. 22 species. I wonder what they were like. I'll never know. Wake Rail, Laysan Crake, Hawai Crake, Guam Rail (in the wild - still exists in captive breeding).....the list goes on ..... It just feels so wrong...Carrier Pigeon, Dodo, Greak Auk, Eskimo curlew, Ivory Billed Wood Pecker (we have to stop kidding ourselves)... I'd watch that show and shed a tear... animals ? Stelllas Sea Cow, Tasmanian Wolf...if don't wake up soon Orang Utang, Siberian Tiger, Amazonian Pink Dolphin, Blue Macaw.
Come on Holleywood stop crying every year about dead actors who died minted at 98 and start a love in for things that have roamed the earth for thousands of years until we in our most modern and rapacious form came along.
Thankfully my daft big purple swamp chicken won't get into to too much trouble very soon as he can fly (just) buts prefers to migrate across Spain by walking to get down to the coast in the dry season - they must have little trails that have been used by their purple brethren for thousands of years. I'd go to see that - the march of the Purple Swamphens of Andulucia - there you go Hollywood - your next blockbuster.
I'd just like to say how proud I am of this award and that I'm proud to be a giant rail and proud to be purple....
Purple Gallinule - Porphyrio porphyrio
Yala, Sri Lanka
April 2011
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