Birds nesting in wetlands are potentially among the most affected by the impacts of climate change. Its effects on precipitation dynamics and sea-level rise may significantly and directly impact nest flooding. As an adaptive response to water level fluctuations, wetland species express plasticity in nesting behaviour and the egg and embryo, the common gallinule (Gallinula galeata) appears to be highly adaptable in these respects. Its plasticity is characterised by its breeding biology, social interactions and habitat use. In the present study, we conducted an experiment to explore embryo survival rate in relation to water immersion period and compared it with related and unrelated species. We collected the eggs from the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. The eggs were randomly divided into three groups; a control (n = 23) was incubated in standard conditions; meanwhile, the other two groups were exposed to experimental water immersion during incubation, one group for two hours (n = 23) and the other one for three hours (n = 21). The experiment was designed to compare the data with a previous study on water rail (Rallus aquaticus) and Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica). A binomial proportional test was applied to evaluate the relative hatching success of each species. The results showed no statistically significant differences in the hatching success of common gallinule eggs between the control group and eggs immersed in water (P = 0.502). The impact of water immersion on hatching success was most pronounced in the Japanese quail (P < 0.001); water rail showed significant differences between control eggs and those flooded for three hours (P = 0.005). The results contribute to understanding the biology of the common gallinule and also reveal the differing capacities among species to cope with environmental change.