AMERICAN COOTS

      American coots are unique birds in marshes and open, fresh waters across much of North America, from southern Canada to Ecuador.  They are unusual in that they appear to be chicken-like, with chicken habits, and duck-like, with duck habits, all at the same time.  But, of course, they are not related to chickens or ducks.  They are in the Rallidae family of birds, related to the secretive rails and gallinules.

     Coots are attractive in their own way, with chunky, rounded bodies, like chickens, slate-gray body feathering, with black heads, white, chicken-like beaks and dull-green legs and feet.  While walking on shores and in fields, they use their bills to pick up seeds, greens, especially grass, and invertebrates from the soil, as chickens do.  Each of their eight toes has lobes that aid coots in swimming, and diving under water from the surface to get aquatic vegetation and invertebrates, as some ducks do.  

     Coots constantly bob their heads while walking and swimming.  And they fly well, once they get airborne after running across water, while flapping their wings, for some little distance.

     Pairs of American coots build floating cradles of vegetation among emergent plants, like cattails, in shallow water.  The emergent vegetation helps screen the nurseries, eggs, setting birds and chicks from the view of mink, raccoons, coyotes, hawks, owls and other kinds of predators who would eat the eggs, or young coots.  

     Up to 12 chicks hatch in a clutch.  Their parents lead them across the shallows and feed them water plants and invertebrates along the way.  The young at hatching are fuzzy, with bald, red crowns, but gradually become more like their parents as they grow to maturity.  

     American coots gather into flocks during winter and congregate on lakes and other open waters, where they feed on grass along shorelines and dive underwater for aquatic plants.  That is when and where we see them the most each year.  I see them wintering on lakes in southeastern Pennsylvania where I live and on our computer screen because of wildlife refuges across the United States, including Sacramento Wildlife Refuge in California.  

     American wigeon and gadwall ducks gather around some flocks of feeding coots on lakes to steal food from the coots.  When coots surface with water plants in their beaks, those kinds of ducks grab some of it away and consume it themselves.  Surprisingly to me is that the coots don't seem to mind that thievery; they just dive for more food again and again until they are full.       

     Yes, American coots are unique creatures, and fun to watch during winter.  There are no other birds like coots.            

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