Purple gallinules make colorful statement at Anahuac refuge
Before spring wanes, visit the watery plain called Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge to see wide-open spaces and scores of birds in resplendent breeding plumage.
Take a camera, if only your smartphone camera, to capture memories of breathtaking vistas, colorful butterflies, gargantuan alligators, handsome songbirds and stately waterbirds, such as fulvous whistling-ducks, snowy egrets and tricolored herons.
And wait until you catch sight of unique tropical waterbirds called purple gallinules, newly arrived from Central America to breed during spring and summer. The radiant birds display shimmering blue, green and purple plumage plus a red beak with a shiny yellow tip.
The gangly, chickensize birds strut with the agility of a ballet dancer over lily pads and dollar grass on long lemonyellow legs with large feet and improbably outstretched spindly toes. They cock their tails upward to reveal a fringe of cotton-white feathers underneath while uttering sharp “keek-keek-keek” cackling sounds rather like a chicken.
Hard to believe the conspicuous birds are in the same family as lackluster
king and clapper rails that reside along Texas coastal marshes and slip in and out of spartina grass like poltergeists. Not that purple gallinules don’t also sneak around marsh vegetation, but they at least move into clear view against marsh vegetation.
A similarly shaped but dark-toned cousin called common gallinule resides all year at the refuge and is quite conspicuous as it swims like a duck in shallow marsh waters. It’s a handsome bird with a red beak and a finely shaded body of charcoal and brown marked smartly by a white stripe along the sides.
But a common gallinule cannot compete with its gaudy cousin for “Oh wow!” photographs.
The old folk name “blue nun” denoted the purple gallinule. The name gallinule comes from Latin for “little hen” and purple from the scientific name Porphyrio martinicus, meaning “purple water hen of Martinique,” where the bird
was officially named.
The fancy bird typically builds a simple
yet sturdy nest as a floating clump of grasses, roots and twigs that may be anchored to adjacent tall vegetation. The nest remains carefully camouflaged among marsh vegetation.
In May, and certainly in June, chicks hatch looking like brown tennis balls on spindly legs and oversized feet, stepping gamely across lily pads behind their mother. The sight of purple gallinule chicks makes it worth going back to the Anahuac refuge, even after the waning of spring.