Laura Erickson's For the Birds

The Common Gallinue, for a few years lumped with the Eurasian species as the Common Moorhen, is a splendid bird of marshes, found year-round from South America through the southern states and Eastern Seaboard of the United States, and extending into much of the eastern half of the U.S. north to central Minnesota and southeastern Canada. It is often seen swimming, duck-like, and uses its extraordinarily long toes to walk about on pond lilies and other marsh vegetation. It eats water plants, seeds, snails, and insects, picking sedge, grass, pondweed, duckweed, and flower seeds from the water surface or just below the surface. It often flips over leaves with its feet to grab snails and insects hidden below.