The real purple bird
Before setting out on a full day of birding on a Saturday morning it is always worth checking the google news group called nf.birds and the Facebook group called the Newfoundland Birdwatching Group just in case something of interest was posted overnight. With the growing use of digital media more and more people have an outlet to report an unusual bird they may have encountered. Often these birds turn out to be something fairly common to the seasoned birdwatcher yet still new and exciting to the person who saw it. Every so often something extraordinary turns up. Such was the case last Saturday morning. Overnight Chris Denine joined the Newfoundland Birdwatching Facebook page just so he could post pictures of a bird extraordinary to him that he wanted identified. The story goes he was fly-fishing in the Waterford River when he flushed a purple and blue bird from the grasses. It landed on rocks in the river showing off bright yellow legs and long toes. Luckily, he got a few photographs with his phone that he posted that night.
When birders saw the pictures first thing Saturday morning they instantly recognized it as a purple gallinule, a very extraordinary bird indeed. There is no other bird like it. Purple gallinules live in warm southern swamp lands usually the same kind of places that support alligators. They are common in Florida and south into Central America. However, the purple gallinule has an amazing history of wandering far from its normal range. Purple gallinules have ended up in such far flung northern localities as Greenland and Iceland. There are a number of previous records for Newfoundland yet none of the birdwatching community had ever seen a purple gallinule in Newfoundland.
A small army of eager birders hastily assembled on the Waterford River early Saturday morning. There was no information in the Facebook posting on where along the river this bird was seen. Eventually one of them talked to fly-fisherman Wayne Benson who had seen the bird on the evening before. He kindly led the birders to the spot just up river from Noseworthy’s store.
It was not long before the prying eyes of birders detected the bright yellow feet belonging to the bird hiding in the grass. Eventually it came out and fed on insects along the grassy edge of the water. It was an adult purple gallinule in its brightest spring plumage. The rest is history. A crowd of birders and curious people walking on the t’railway watched the bird on and off all day.
Meanwhile yours truly was in agony following the events on a smartphone from a supply vessel 300 kilometres away on the Grand Banks. I did not know it at the time, but the oil industry Gods were making plans for my vessel to head into town on cargo run. I was three days late but extremely thankful for the small window of time to look for the purple gallinule.
I had to wait two hours for it to come out of a band of marsh grass on the far shoreline of the river. It was a stunning bird from head to toe. Its chicken-shaped bill looked like the texture of porcelain coloured lime-green at the tip and stop-sign red at the base. It had a pallid, mauve forehead shield. Its head, neck and body were composed of rich shadowy purples appearing as intense indigo when the light was just right. There was a smooth transition into a border of Mediterranean blue then aquamarine green before blending into the bronzed tinged shiny green back and wings. Under its short tail was a tuft of snowy white feathers that flashed with each flick of the tail as it walked. The long legs and outrageous spidery toes were brilliant banana yellow.
Everything about the bird from head to toe was exotic. The bright greens above and shadowy purples below magically melted into the colour of the fresh green grasses growing along the banks of the Waterford River. The all-terrain toes were made for graceful walking over shoreline debris, sticks, soft mud and the large floating lily pads found in the tropics. They can swim short distances when required.
It appeared to be eating well frequently picking insects off shoreline grasses and turning over vegetation in the water looking for aquatic invertebrates. It can survive here at this season. We cannot predict what this bird will do. Will it try to go back South where it belongs? Once the grasses along the Waterford River get taller it will be virtually impossible to find this stealthy bird. How did it get here? Most likely it arrived on one of those strong southerly air flows that brought us so many great egrets this spring.
Didn’t I say spring was an exciting time to be a birdwatcher?
Everything about the bird from head to toe was exotic. The bright greens above and shadowy purples below magically melted into the colour of the fresh green grasses growing along the banks of the Waterford River.