OUT OF PLACE: A giant-footed bird showed up in a Massachusetts backyard. It didn’t belong there.

Friday 16th January 2026

OUT OF PLACE: A giant-footed bird showed up in a Massachusetts backyard. It didn’t belong there.

A winter storm blew an unexpected visitor from the south into a backyard in New Bedford, Massachusetts—a purple gallinule(Porphyrio martinica). These gorgeously colored birds with shockingly large feet, live in marshes from the southeastern United States through South America. These long-legged avians can walk across lily pads, and they eat seeds, aquatic plants, and small invertebrates like insects and snails. 

Jonathan Downes
Cryptozoologist, naturalist, musician, singer, composer, poet, novelist and Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology since 1992. Jon was born in Portsmouth in 1959 and spent his infancy in Nigeria and his childhood in Hong Kong. His wife Corinna died of cancer in 2020, leaving him with two stepdaughters and an eleven year old granddaughter called Evelyn.