The common moorhen is sooty-colored or black and looks like a coot, but it has a broad red plate covering its forehead like a shield. Its bill is red instead of white like a coot's. The purple gallinule nests from the Southern United States to South America. Gallinules build their nests on rough platforms of reeds and grasses in marshes. Female gallinules lay from 6 to 14 eggs of different colors.
Gallinules are excellent swimmers but poor fliers.
Gallinules remain concealed most of the time in marsh grasses. Gallinules are in the rail family, Rallidae. The scientific name for the common moorhen is Gallinula chloropus. The purple gallinule is Porphyrula martinica. Peter G. Connors, Ph.D., Principal Museum Scientist, Bodega Marine Laboratory, Univ. of California, Davis.