A moorhen by any other name would smell as marshy

What's in a name?

When we first spotted these "swamp chickens" on Bayou Lacombe, I called them gallinules.

Then I remembered that while their more colourful cousins (leaving aside the candy-corn bills) are purple gallinules, these are called common moorhens.

And now when I sit down to write about them and share Jessica's pictures, I find that the AOU (American Ornithologists' Union, the definitive or at least official source on nomenclature) split the Old World's common moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) from the common gallinule (G. galeata) of the Americas back in 2011.

So I was right the first time—except that the AOU would insist on the full and capitalised name Common Gallinule.

It's been said before, but the AOU can go soak its collective head.