These are common in wetlands and swamps throughout eastern and northern Australia, often in pairs and larger communities. On the Capricorn Coast you can find them at the Emu Park and Kinka wetlands, around Lake Mary and beside the Sandy Point Road, they are sometimes in company with the Dusky Moorhen but are slightly larger while the Moorhen is entirely grey-brown and with a yellow tip to the beak.
They walk and run vigorously on strong legs having long toes that are well adapted to the soft, uneven surfaces of the marshy areas where they live.
Their diet is mostly the soft shoots of reeds and rushes but small animals such as frogs, snails, crustaceans and insects are welcome.
Males and females are indistinguishable and breeding takes place whenever conditions are favourable, the nest is a platform of trampled reeds with the surrounding vegetation sometimes being used to form a shelter, often two broods will be raised in a year.