This immature Purple Gallinule was found at a detention pond near Macungie, Lehigh County on 30-Sep, where it remained on 2-Oct when these pictures were taken.  It spent the entire morning feeding on grass seeds at the edge of pond, in full sunlight, to the delight of the cameraman and the many birders who gathered at the site.  The pond itself is in the heart of a newly developing suburban neighborhood; testimony to the fact that birds will find and use their preferred habitat wherever they can find it.

 

Purple Gallinules normally inhabit the United States in the southeast, from coastal South Carolina throughout Florida and around the Gulf Coast to Mexico, though they are known to wander inland, primarily up the Atlantic Coast and into the mid-Atlantic states and lower Great Lakes.  There are over 20 records for Pennsylvania, though this is only the second record for the state since the 1980s and the first for Lehigh County.