Talk:Moorhen

Untitled
Could this page be moved to Gallinula? --MarkSweep 01:12, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The British moorhen is all black with a red head, there are no pictures of it on the page so I can't tell if it is included ehre.


 * Would it be an idea to include the Common Moorhen in the WPCD instead? It's a bit more relevant to a general English-speaking audience I think. Jens Nielsen 15:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Solitary birds
I always thought that moorhens were solitary birds; I've certainly never seen them in flocks as this article suggests. Can anyone provide confirmation? Liamoliver 22:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Purple Gallinule not here
There should be some discussion why the Purple Gallinule and American Purple Gallinule are not here. Tomfriedel (talk) 12:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Grinding their backs?
Does that mean that they bob their head back and forth along their backs? I don't get it... :( HoopoeBaijiKite 06:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect claim re the term (spelling) "nativehens"
Because it is only highly specialist groups (i.e. the IOC and Cornell Lab) who currently mangle the English language by calling (only in written form, of course) native hens "nativehens", while the overwhelming majority of academic and other reliable sources (see below), naturally, use "native hen", it is incorrect to claim that "Two species ... are called "nativehens". "


 * The University of Tasmania
 * The University of Queensland
 * Birdlife Australia:  http://www.birdlife.org.au/images/uploads/branches/documents/TAS-Bruny_endemics.pdf
 * [|The Oxford English Dictionary]
 * The Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service
 * The Derwent Estuary Program
 * Cayley, Neville W. (1971). What Bird is That? (5th, revised ed.). Sydney: Angus & Robertson. p. 251. ISBN 0207941300.

Linguistically, "|swamphen", |"woodhen" and "moorhen" differ dramatically from "nativehen" in that "native" doesn't describe a type of habitat. "Native" refers here to Tasmania, and "Tasmanian Native" is acting as a compound modifier (or adjective) of (for) "hen". "Swamphen" (etc) describes a hen of the swamp (etc). By that logic, "nativehen" indicates that this is a hen of "the native" and (still following the swamphen, etc, logic) this bird's full name should be rendered "Tasmaniannativehen", as it's a hen of not just any old native but of Tasmanian native (this is the type of grammar the IOC's practice leads us into). This is one of those cases where an exception to WP's current chosen standard needs to be made, on the grounds of both usage and of grammatical logic. (Just for the record, I have no interest in changing "swamphen" & the others.) --Philologia (talk) 08:14, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

educational video about moorhen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2psmJ0QtJlI

May I added to external links? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark.barkan (talk • contribs) 10:33, 20 August 2020 (UTC)