Baillon's crake, Borakalalo National Park, North
West Province, South Africa. [photo
Sammy Janse van Rensburg]
Distribution and habitat
Occurs across the Old World, from Europe to eastern Asia,
Indonesia, Australia, and Africa from Ethiopia through the DRC to southern
Africa. Here it is generally uncommon in northern Namibia (including the Caprivi
Strip), northern Botswana, Zimbabwe, central Zimbabwe and patches of South
Africa. It generally prefers dense vegetation in pans, marshes, seasonally
flooded grassland and margins of open water.
Little known, although it is thought to be
largely resident, with some moving seasonally in response to
environmental conditions.
Food
Mainly eats invertebrates, supplemented with fish, doing most of
its foraging on mud or floating vegetation along the edges of water bodies. It
mainly catches prey by plucking them from the vegetation and probing the ground. The following food items have been recorded
in its diet:
Monogamous territorial solitary nester, defending its territory by chasing
away intruders and regularly displaying.
The nest is saucer-shaped pad of dry grass, sedge stems, reeds and
other leaves, typically placed close to the water in or between grass or
sedge tufts.
Egg-laying season is from September-November in the Western Cape and
from December-May elsewhere in southern Africa.
It lays 2-6 eggs, which are incubated by both adults for about 17-20
days, defending the nest by either sitting tight or pecking at the intruder.
The chicks leave the nest after about 24 hours and brooded and fed by
both parents, learning to self-feed after a few days and becoming fully
independent before fledging at about 35 days old.
Threats
Not threatened.
References
Hockey PAR, Dean WRJ and Ryan PG 2005. Roberts
- Birds of southern Africa, VIIth ed. The Trustees of the John Voelcker
Bird Book Fund, Cape Town.