The Common Gallinule is a medium-sized marsh bird in the rail family that occurs as a year-round resident in Arizona’s wetlands, particularly along the lower Colorado River corridor and in urban ponds around Phoenix and Tucson. It inhabits well-vegetated marshes, ponds, canals, and other wetlands with dense emergent vegetation—cattails, bulrushes, and reed beds—where it forages on seeds, aquatic invertebrates, and small fish. Nesting typically begins in mid-March; pairs construct floating platform nests anchored to emergent plants, lay 6–8 eggs, and both parents share incubation duties, with chicks fledging after roughly 40–50 days. Although often secretive, flushed individuals reveal a red frontal shield and bill tipped with yellow, dark plumage, and, in flight, a conspicuous white undertail and upturned wingtips.
