FIJI'S "Teri" Purple Swamphen Home, The Collection, Go to Order Page, Mailing List

PURPLE SWAMPHEN STAMP ISSUE

Fiji’s Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphrio is a large bird, and this together with its distinctive purple-blue plumage and conspicuous red bill and frontal shield, and long red legs make it quite unmistakable. Nonetheless, the Teri or Qala as it is called by Fijians is not widely known today because it is now extinct on Fiji’s larger islands because of predation by the introduced mongoose Herpestes auropunctatus.

In the days before the introduction of the mongoose, the Jungle Fowl Gallus gallus used to crow in the forests of Viti Levu, the Banded Rail Gallirallus philippensis was common in gardens and thick bush, where it would have been joined by the Purple Swamphen, and perhaps the Friendly Ground Dove Gallicolumba stairi really was ‘friendly’ in those days– because it certainly in not today.

What is somewhat surprising about this situation is that the Purple Swamphen is a very widespread bird worldwide, being found from southern Europe, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Melanesia, Australia, New Zealand, to Fiji’s neighboring islands in western Polynesia. Over much of this range, the Swamphen survives in the presence of mongooses of a variety of types as well as a large number of other small predators- cats, civets, snakes, eagles – you name them. In New Zealand it is an abundant bird or rough damp pasture especially near wetlands and it has easily survived the introduction of stoats, weasels, ferrets, feral cats and myriad others. So its demise in Fiji as a result of the introduction of the mongoose (as well as feral cats) is another example of the elevated vulnerability of small island birds to introduced predators.

Purple Swamphens are most active at dawn or dusk and are partly nocturnal in habit. They are ground-living birds but they readily fly when disturbed, although often waiting to the last moment before exploding out of thick vegetation. Noticeably ponderous in flight, Swamphens allow their legs to dangle over short distances but they are held up and trail behind the tail on longer flights.

Despite its common name, the Swamphen is frequently encountered away from water and wetlands, sometimes in mature forest, but usually in thick secondary vegetation or overgrown village gardens. The mixed diet includes insects, worms and other invertebrates, and plant material consisting of seeds, fruit, young shoots and tubers. It eats bird’s eggs and nestlings and it has also been recorded as a predator, killing and eating a wounded Wandering Tattler.

On the Tongan island of Fonualei, the Swamphen is common in the open habitat around the central crater which supports a huge breeding colony of sooty Terns, where it scavenges on eggs, juveniles and dead birds.Purple Swamphen nests are often built far from water in suitable thick vegetation, usually on the ground but sometimes low in bushes.

In general, Fijians are not appreciative of their Teri/Qala as its often extensive damage to bananas, plantains taro and cassava frequently brings it into confrontation with farmers, and in consequence it is often persecute. Certainly, it is not the ‘Bird of Kings’, in Fiji as it is in Samoa. So called, because traditionally this bird was kept captive by Samoan chiefs, and a captive bird was taken to forewarn villages and families that the chief was coming to pay a visit.

$2.00	$2.00

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