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Ancestor: Blue Sparrow

Size: 33 cm beak to tail neck extended

Dietary Needs: These birds are small carnivores that specialise in very tiny freshwater prey. These prey are usually small, young fish, invertebrates such as young crayfish, snails in water, and worms, beetles and isopods in the mud, but sometimes they will eat very small lizards.

Life Cycle: Due to a larger size than their ancestor and a more complicated means of hunting than their ancestor, they require longer to physically and mentally develop.  They usually manage up to two broods a year. Three eggs are typical. The level of parental care even post-fledging is high, so the mortality rate of chicks is a bit lower than some bird species, but it's usual for at least 1 to die before maturity.

Males and females find each other through song and visual courtship, though the male might need to fight or intimidate other males to win the interest of the female. The male's bright blue breast (which is present to some degree in all species) is nothing but a detriment when surviving and hunting. However the attraction towards blue males is so high in females that it continues to be selected for  in spite of the handicap it causes. This means that males have a higher rate of mortality than females, but the survivors tend to have extremely high vigour and awareness. Very fit males can juggle multiple female mates. If caught by his mates, females get jealous. It does her no good for her male to be taking energy that could be spent on her chicks and helping his other chicks that have nothing to do with her. Females may attack the male and become more vigilant about his whereabouts, forcing him to be more inconspicuous about leading double lives. She might also attack the other female and chicks.

That said there are still a lot of males that will commit to just one family.

Other: Their long legs have flexible joints so that they can stand positioned over water from grass. They can perch on grass stalks and wade in very shallow water, their long toes spreading their weight so to less disturb the muddy bottom. Hidden in the foliage or sometimes in plain sight these birds will wait for aquatic (and sometimes terrestrial) prey to swim or walk by. They stand poised to strike with their neck coiled, which is not usually plain to see under their puffy feathers. When they strike their neck extends faster than they could actually lunge at prey, giving them an edge in speed for the first  half a metre.

Prey in the water can be difficult to come by especially out of season. Dartfishers take advantage of the fact that water prey find these birds more difficult to see than terrestrial prey do. When prey is in season they have more than enough to feed their chicks.

Out of season they go looking for land for prey, especially in environments where the reason for prey being out of season is due to rivers drying.