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Coots, Gallinules, and Rails

Marie Travers and Isabel Luevano

Natural History

Coots, gallinules, and rails belong to order Gruiformes and the family Rallidae. They are generally
shy wetland species that build floating nests, and their chicks are semi‐precocial or precocial at
hatching. All birds in the family Rallidae are small to medium sized and have short, rounded wings
and short tails. They all also have large feet with long toes adapted to walking on marshy land and
aquatic plants, except for coot species, which have lobed toes that enable them to swim better than
the rest of the rallids. The most variable feature within this family is the bill. In some species (e.g.
coots), the bill is short and somewhat wide; in other species (e.g. the Clapper Rail), the bill is longer
than the head and slightly decurved.
Rallids are opportunistic omnivores whose diet depends on the seasonal and local availability of
a wide variety of plant matter, invertebrates, seeds, fruits, small vertebrates, and sometimes car-
rion. Once hatched, chicks are able to leave the nest within 6–48 hours, depending on the species,
although most are fed and brooded by their parents for the first few weeks. Rails, coots, and galli-
nules are considered sub‐/semi‐precocial, meaning that once hatched, they can leave the nest and
walk, swim, and forage (Conway 1995; Bannor and Kiviat 2002; Brisbin Jr. and Mowbray 2002).
Chicks of these species typically have blackish down covering much of their bodies, plus several
species have sharply contrasting head coloration known as “chick ornaments” consisting of bright
reddish‐orange feathers. American Coot chicks have a reddish‐orange, bald‐appearing head with
fringes of these brightly colored plumes (Figure 22.1), while Sora hatchlings are covered with black
down with a bright reddish‐orange bill ornament and fringe at the base of the bill.

Coots and Gallinules
Compared with rails, coots and gallinules are outgoing and easily seen. Whereas gallinules are
generally solitary species, coots often flock like ducks, swimming in open water and waddling
conspicuously on shore. Gallinules, often called moorhens (or “marsh hens”), comprise 10 species
worldwide, 2 of which, the Common Gallinule and the Purple Gallinule, are native to North
America. These birds are more shy and more solitary than American Coots, but share the coots’
duck‐like appearance, although not the specialized semi‐lobate toes that enable coots to quickly
move across water surfaces (Bannor and Kiviat 2002). See Figure 22.2a and b for a comparison of
toe morphology.

Hand-Rearing Birds, Second Edition. Edited by Rebecca S. Duerr and Laurie J. Gage.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.