The African Fin foot is a reclusive red-billed water bird that is widespread in quiet lakes and rivers with overhanging vegetation.Finfoot, (family Heliornithidae), also called sun-grebe, any of three species of medium-sized lobe-footed, semiaquatic birds found in tropical regions around the world. They constitute a family that superficially resembles cornmorants but are actually members of the Crane and order (Gruiformes).
Finfoots are named for the lobes on their feet, which enable them both to swim well and to clamber about among fallen trunks and branches of dense forest and scrubland.haracteristically, finfoots are brown above and whitish below, with a long, thin neck, a small head, and a strong tapered bill.
In Uganda If you are among those wishing to see the African Fin foot, you can regularly see it from boat trips on Lake Mburo, and also on the crater lake at Jacana lodge, Queen Elizabeth National Park.
They are poor flyers, spending most of their time in shady, quiet rivers, half-submerged near overhanging banks, where they feed upon frogs, worms,crustaceans, mollusks, and insects. They build flat nests of sticks or reeds among branches of dead trees, laying two to five rounded cream-coloured eggs. The finfoots are shy, scarce, secluded birds. None is more than 60 cm (24 inches) long. The sungrebe, or American finfoot (Heliornis fulica), is only half that size, with a red bill, an olive body, and black-banded yellow toes.
The male has skin pouches under the wing in which he carries the naked, helpless chicks from the nest upon hatching, clamping them so tightly that he can carry them even while flying. The species ranges from Veracruz, Mex., to northeastern Argentina.The African finfoot (Podica senegalensis) is the largest species, 46–53 cm (18–21 inches) long. It occurs from Senegal to the Congo basin and from Ethiopia to the Cape of Good Hope. It has bright red feet and a slate-gray neck with an ill-defined whitish stripe down the side.
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