Cranes, rails and allies | Gruiformes

Families in this order

• Limpkin | Aramidae1 speciesThe family holds a single species worldwide, at home in marshes with plenty of floating growth and slow-moving water. Its food consists largely of apple snails. The long bill is bent slightly to the right at the tip, exactly the way the snail's shell coils, and the two halves of the bill meet only at the front, forming a pair of tweezers. The bird carries the snail to a fixed spot on the bank, wedges the shell in the mud with the opening upward, cuts the closing muscle and draws the animal out whole; at such a feeding place hundreds of undamaged empty shells build up over time. Freshwater mussels, insects and frogs are eaten as well. The dark brown plumage is marked with white, teardrop-shaped streaks over the neck and mantle. The call is a loud, wailing scream, given mostly at night and carrying far across the marsh. In flight the legs trail behind the body and the wingbeat has a short, jerky upward flick. The nest is a coarse structure in dense marsh growth or low over the water.
• Cranes | Gruidae3 speciesThe windpipe is elongated and coils partly inside the breastbone, acting almost like a wind instrument that gives the trumpeting call its carrying resonance, and paired birds call in a tightly matched duet that comes across as a single sound. Courtship is a leaping, bowing dance performed with tossed twigs or grass, and it recurs year-round rather than being confined to the breeding season. Cranes walk open marsh and grassland on their long legs, picking and probing seeds, tubers and small animals from the ground or just beneath it; some, including the Sandhill Crane, rub mud into their plumage, staining the otherwise grey body rust-brown. Of the two eggs in a clutch, usually only one chick survives: the older sibling actively drives the younger away from food, and once fledged, families migrate together in small groups to the wintering grounds.
• Rails, gallinules and coots | Rallidae12 speciesThe body is flattened from side to side, so that the bird squeezes through dense reed and sedge without setting the stems moving; the long toes spread its weight over floating leaves and soft mud, and in the swimming species the toes carry broad lobes that open at each stroke and fold shut again afterwards. They are reluctant to fly, and then only low and fluttering with the legs dangling, while many species do migrate long distances at night; on remote islands there are species that cannot fly at all. Their presence is almost always revealed by sound: a hard rattling cackle, a grunting moan or a whinnying series rising from the marsh after sunset and answered by the neighbours. The nest is a cup of stems bent over and woven together, often with a canopy of pulled-down leaves and a walkway down to the water. The clutch is large and the black downy chicks leave the nest after a day or two; they are then fed piece by piece by both parents for weeks, sometimes with young from an earlier brood helping out.