An Australasian Swamphen displays its long toes, blue-purple plumage and heavy red bill and frontal shield. Photo: Ian Fraser.
Three hens that love water – it could be the title of a fun children’s story but it’s not make-believe, this is a true story.
It’s the time of year when many of us are hanging out again near Canberra’s lakes and ponds, for picnics, walks, rides or just socialising.
Anywhere we’re doing this, we’ll be sharing the space with up to three different, very common, blackish small- to medium-sized water birds – so common and familiar in fact we often overlook them.
In descending order of size they are the Australasian Swamphen, the Dusky Moorhen and the Eurasian Coot, but for the rest of this column they’ll just be swamphen, moorhen and coot.
Swamphens are real characters, big and bold, glossy dark purplish-blue and with a conspicuous big red bill which extends up the forehead as a broad ‘frontal shield’. They spend more time on land than the other two species and have no compunctions about jumping onto your picnic table and pinching a sandwich if you’re not careful.
The swamphens on Black Mountain Peninsula were notorious for this but I’ve not visited them for a while. In true swamphen style, they constantly flick their tail up to display a white rump – presumably a ‘here I am’ signal to the group.
They also have long toes for clambering around in reed beds where they spend a lot of time when not on picnic tables. They breed deep in the reeds, one reason their breeding biology – and that of the group as a whole – is not well known.
However, what we know suggests a somewhat Bohemian lifestyle (to put an inappropriate human slant on it). All the females in the group lay their eggs in the same nest and the clutch also has multiple fathers. They all help in building platforms within the reeds by pulling down and trampling reeds – there is a breeding platform on which the nest sits, plus others for roosting at night.
All the group shares brooding and chick care, but apparently only the dominant male broods overnight.
Their diet is broad. Much of it comprises the tender young stems of the reeds, but they also catch and eat frogs, snails, fish and even ducklings. They will also rob the nests of other birds in the reeds by climbing the reeds. They rarely swim, but readily feed in shallow water.
A Dusky Moorhen shows its dusky colouring and distinctive yellow-tipped bill. Photo: Ian Fraser.
The second member of the group is also common at any local water body. The moorhen is a smaller, plain dark grey-brown bird with a more slender red or orange frontal plate and bill with an obvious yellow tip. They spend an equal time in the water and on land. Typically one to three males hold a territory and mate with one female, though sometimes there are larger groups, all promiscuous.
Like the swamphens, they build platforms among the reeds for breeding and roosting. Most of their food is vegetable matter, with a few worms and insects as they encounter them.
Finally, the most abundant member of the group is the coot, which may occur in the hundreds on larger water bodies and is present in smaller numbers on almost any pond. It is the smallest of the
three, sooty black with a conspicuous white bill and frontal plate.
The Eurasian Coot feeding two colourful chicks. Photo: Ian Fraser.
Coots spend most of their time on the water, diving regularly for water weed, though they will gather on the shore to rest and preen.
They don’t have fully webbed feet like a duck, but fringes of skin along each toe to assist swimming. Their nests are made of weed, surrounded by water and often floating on the surface.
Coots are remarkably cranky little birds, often chasing each other and other birds across the water, and brazenly evicting grebes and ducks from active nests so they can use them to loaf on.
They’re probably not ideal neighbours but neither are the swamphens. The expression ‘bald as a coot’ comes from this bird, but it was originally ‘beld’, meaning white.
This interesting – but not always loveable – trio is easy to tell apart. Try it next time you’re out by a lake.
Ian Fraser is a Canberra naturalist, conservationist and author. He has written on all aspects of natural history, advised the ACT Government on biodiversity and published multiple guides to the region’s flora and fauna.
