Baillons crake

Introduction: Baillon's crake (Porzana pusilla) live and breed in the dense vegetation associated with pans, marshes and seasonally flooded grassland. They are usually active from dawn to mid-morning and from mid-afternoon to dusk.

Distribution: Etosha, Rundu, Windhoek, Caprivi.

Diet: Forages along the edges of ponds, along stream banks and beds of reeds and bulrushes or while floating on water plants for aquatic insects, beetles, spiders, snails small fish, moths, seeds and other green plant matter.

Description: Small crake with short, deep bill. Often confused with the larger African crake and striped crake. Porzana is the Latin word for crake and pusilla 'very small'.

Breeding: Between 2 and 6 eggs are laid on a saucer-shaped nest made of dry grass, reed and leaves between December and April.

Size: 17cm.

Weight: 45g.