Common Gallinule in Galápagos: Facts and Where to See It

The gallinule is a rail, but an unusual one. Its long toes have no lobes or webbing, yet it swims well, and the same long toes let it walk across soft mud and floating vegetation. It is usually heard before it is seen, with clucking and whinnying calls from thick cover, and it peeks in and out of the plants at the water's edge.

• Climbing chicks. Newly hatched chicks have spurs on their wings that help them climb into the nest and hold on to plants.
• Display platforms. Besides nests, gallinules build platforms of matted plants to display to potential mates.
• A changed name. It used to be called the common moorhen and is closely related to the moorhens of Europe and Asia.

Common gallinules live in marshes and ponds from Canada to Chile, keeping close to thick vegetation at the water's edge and sometimes feeding in open water. In the twentieth century they spread northwards, first breeding in Pennsylvania in 1904 and now as far north as the Maritime Provinces of Canada. A subspecies on the Hawaiian Islands, the Hawaiian gallinule, is endangered.

Guide sighting records list the gallinule at 1 site: Punta Moreno on Isabela, where a lava field holds small brackish pools among mangroves. The guides rate it Rare. Listen first: its calls often give it away before it shows itself.

The guide records list the gallinule in every month. In the next twelve months, 317 departures stop at the site where it is recorded.

No, the species is listed as Least Concern; only the Hawaiian subspecies is endangered. In Galápagos, park rules keep visitors on the trails and at least 2 metres (6 feet) from wildlife, which helps with a shy bird of the lagoon edges.

1. Looking only at open water. Gallinules keep to the edge of the vegetation.
2. Talking loudly at the pools. The calls are the best clue.
3. Counting on a sighting. The one site in the guide records is rated Rare.