Common Gallinule
Gallinula galeata
Least Concern (IUCN Red List)Rails, Gallinules, and Coots
Photo: Roderick Hornby · iNaturalist · CC-BY-NC 4.0 (licence)
Call and song
Recording 1 · call
Recording 2
Recording 3
About the Common Gallinule
Blackish, chicken-like marsh bird, often found near cattails, never far from water. Often seen swimming, picking at the water's surface, or walking along the edge of aquatic vegetation. Thick legs and long toes are drab yellow. Adults have bright red bill with yellow tip, thin white side stripe, and some white under the tail. Immatures are paler and grayer than adults, lacking brightly colored bill.
Species account: eBird.org, fetched 2025-12-26 · How these pages are made
Where it has been recorded
Recorded in 56 of the 253 countries we have eBird lists for. Each opens that country's checklist.
- Anguilla
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Argentina
- Aruba
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Canada
- Caribbean Netherlands
- Cayman Islands
- Chile
- Clipperton Island
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Curaçao
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- El Salvador
- French Guiana
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guatemala
- Guyana
- Haiti
- High Seas
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Martinique
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Barthélemy
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Martin (French part)
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Sint Maarten
- Suriname
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- United States
- United States Minor Outlying Islands
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Virgin Islands (British)
- Virgin Islands (U.S.)
