Purple Gallinule

The purple gallinule is a brightly colored marsh bird that is about the size of a chicken. It has blue and green feathers, long yellow legs, very long toes and a red bill with a yellow tip.
The purple gallinule can be found in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma. It winters on the Gulf Coast. It is also found in Central and South America and the West Indies.
The purple gallinule lives in freshwater marshes with aquatic vegetation like lily pads and pickerelweed.

The purple gallinule eats a wide variety of foods including frogs, grasshoppers, dragonflies, spiders and water plants.
Female purple gallinules lay six to ten eggs in a nest of dead tree stems and leaves. The nest is usually placed on a floating tussock, in a clump of sawgrass or in a thicket. Both parents incubate the eggs and feed the chicks. Purple gallinules perform a "changing of the guard" ceremony while they are nesting. One partner will bring the other partner incubating the eggs a leaf. The bird on the nest adds the leaf to the nest before turning incubation duties over to the other gallinule.
The purple gallinule is not a very good flyer, but it is an excellent wader. It uses its long toes to distribute its weight, and it can even walk on lily pads.