MEXICAN JACANA 
The long-legged Mexican jacanas lead a sedentary life on the mud flats 
of Mexico and the lower Rio Grande, spending most of their waking hours 
in feeding. They are readily distinguished from other aquatic birds by the 
naked shield or lappet on their foreheads. Easily alarmed, they take wing 
with a plaintive cackle, but in the main they fly little. Jacanas make their 
homes near lakes and ponds, usually choosing those which contain lilies 
and other masses of floating vegetation. Their extraordinarily elongated 
toes permit walking or even running on the lily pads with great ease. They 
feed on minute insect life. Jacanas confine themselves exclusively to this 
insect diet. They are good swimmers and divers, but the adults do not 
make much use of these abilities. Mexican jacanas are greenish or purplish- 
black with apple-green wings. 
Highly gregarious, they are sometimes seen with herons, bitterns and 
gallinules. Occasionally a member of the flock will stretch its neck up 
straight, assuming the function of lookout. Another will extend its wings 
briskly until they meet in back; this pose is thought to be a warning signal. 
The jacanas’ only weapons are sharp spurs in the bend of each wing, and 
these are used only in occasional fights among themselves. 
During the mating season in April the males flirt by raising their 
wings over their backs as if attempting to strike the females. They nest 
from April to August in fragile floating houses, built of leaves and rushes 
and supported on lily pads or other plants. Sometimes the nests are placed 
on the water’s edge. Each female lays four glossy brown, curiously veined 
eggs, which, it is thought, are incubated by the heat of the sun. The young 
are able to run as soon as they are hatched and very soon learn to dive and 
swim under water. 
After breeding, jacanas undertake a sort of local migration, flying for 
some distance about the neighborhood, sampling nearby ponds, but never 
straying far from their favorite breeding ground. As they fly, the yellowish- 
green patches in their wings flash golden in the sun. 
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