Bird Watching - Grey-headed Swamphen

Grey-headed Swamphen

The Purple Moorhen, is known as the Grey headed swamphen in India. The male has a glistening purple plumage and the female is a little duller— a greyish-purple in colour. It's long toes make it seem clumsy, walking around with a calculated gait and short stubby tail flicks at every step. A handsome but clumsy purplish blue rail with long red legs and toes.The bald red forehead  continue back from the short heavy red bill, and the white patch under the stumpy tail. Sexes alike

Local names: Dasari, Thekari ( Hindi)

                    Neelakozhi (Malayalam)

These birds Stalks or skulks through the vegetation with the jerky bobbing of head and flicking of tail. Food is shoots and vegetable matter, also insects and molluscs.

Nest is  a large pad of interwoven reed flag on a mass of floating debris or amongst matted reeds slightly above water level. Egg- 3 to 7 , pale yellowish stone to reddish buff, blotched and spotted with reddish brown. 

Since 2015 Purple Swamphen in India is changed to Grey-headed Swamphen. Before Purple Swamphen this was called purple Moorhen.

This species had a huge geographic range, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Australia. Purple Swamphen is split into 6 species, the one found in India being called Grey-headed Swamphen ( Source- 2015 taxonomy update for Indian birds )

References

The Book of Indian Birds (Salim Ali)

ebird.com

Pictures:

Kaikondrahalli Lake, Bangalore

(Kaikondrahalli lake is where i go for my morning walk during my days in Bangalore. Walk through the lake, you will be lucky to catch a glimpse of the Grey-headed swamphen, among the water grasses any day. The lake is a home to many such beautiful birds and it  is the one thing i miss the most in Bangalore)