porphyrio melanotus

Taken in Picton, NZ. He was trying to get in for breakfast!

Apologies for lack of comments, I've been involved in a lot of video editing lately - it's very time-consuming but I've nearly finished.

I remember as a young man looking at these in my Birds of Britain and Europe bird guide and thinking how exotic they were. Here we see them so often they can be overlooked!

We have been having a lot of rain and the rivers and creeks bursting their banks so I went down town to see whether we could cross over the cobblestone ford. When I got there I found a pair of Purple Swamphens moving back and forth across the reeds in the swollen creek...as I watched and took a...

Actually it is not landing, just trying to fly :)

porphyrio in Europe madagascariensis in Africa poliocephalus in tropical Asia melanotus in much of Australasia indicus in Indonesia pulverulentis in the Philippines. A member of a big family, melanotus