Advertisement
Fun Facts
Did You Know?
The family Rallidae contains the rails, gallinules, and coots — a group of birds that are, collectively, better adapted to life in and around wetland vegetation than almost any other family. Most rails are secretive to the point of near-invisibility, lurking in dense marsh grass and rarely showing themselves. The coot took a different evolutionary path: it came out of the reeds and onto the open water, and it is the only member of the rail family to have made that full transition to open-water living
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
Every serious discussion of the American coot (Fulica americana) begins with the same correction: it is not a duck. It swims like a duck, hangs out with ducks, and spends most of its winter on the same water as ducks.
It is more closely related to the sandhill crane than to the mallard. The coot is a rail — a member of the family Rallidae, order Gruiformes — which in practice means it has a white bill instead of a flat bill, lobed toes instead of webbed feet, and a tendency to pump its head forward with each stroke when swimming.
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: Coots are omnivorous generalists, eating aquatic vegetation, algae, seeds, insects, tadpoles, small fish, snails, CRAWFISH, and whatever else they can reach by dabbling, diving, or grazing on land. They dive deeper than most dabbling ducks and come up with bottom material that surface feeders cannot reach. They graze on land. They steal from birds that already did the work. They eat eggs of other birds when they find them. The coot is not a picky eater and it is not above anything. The ecological footprint of a coot population is significant. One estimate from a Virginia wintering population suggested local coots consumed 216 tons of vegetation per winter, dry weight. In North Louisiana's managed impoundments, coot grazing pressure on aquatic vegetation is a real consideration in water management.
Live birth or eggs? no
When young are born: Juveniles are lighter gray-brown with a smaller, less developed frontal shield and a bill that becomes whiter and the frontal shield more developed as the bird matures — a first-year coot in fall is identifiably a coot but looks washed out compared to an adult.
Photo Gallery
What Is the American Coot Often Confused With?
The coot is dark gray to black overall — sooty, coal-colored, without the pattern variation of most waterfowl. The bill is white with a dark band near the tip and a small red spot at the base of the frontal shield. The frontal shield itself — the fleshy plate that extends from the base of the bill up the forehead — is white with a reddish-brown spot near the top between the eyes. The eyes are red. The legs and feet are yellowish-green and large — disproportionately large for the bird's body, which is the point. The toes are lobed rather than webbed: each toe has broad flat lobes along the sides that fold back against the toe on the forward stroke and open up on the power stroke, providing propulsion without the drag of a permanently spread web. The lobes also allow coots to walk on soft ground, mats of floating vegetation, and marshy substrate that would stop a webbed-footed duck cold.
Drag the handle left and right to compare American Coot side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
Open the visual comparison tool
American Coot vs. American Wigeon
1 of 3
Advertisement
Accessibility
Accessibility
Coots are among the most accessible waterbirds on North Louisiana's managed impoundments and public lakes — they are large, conspicuous, dark, white-billed, and present in open water in numbers that do not require binoculars to detect. The white bill is visible at considerable distance. The head-pumping swimming motion is identifiable from a levee road.
They are also loud. The coot produces a wide variety of calls — grunts, croaks, squawks, and the repetitive kek-kek-kek that carries across open water — that make them acoustically prominent on any winter marsh. In a large winter concentration, the coot background noise is constant and multilayered, with alarm calls, contact calls, and aggression calls all running simultaneously. A large winter concentration produces a continuous background of coot noise that is audible before the birds are visible.
For visitors with limited vision, the coot's call profile is one of the more distinctive available in a winter Louisiana wetland.
The fights are worth watching from a levee road on a calm morning when the birds are active and territorial. Two coots going at it with their feet 40 yards from the road require no binoculars and no prior birding experience to appreciate. They produce sound, splashing, wing-beating, and apparent genuine grievance at a volume audible from the road. Whatever they are fighting about, they take it seriously.
Advertisement
Frequently Asked Questions
Does American Coot live in North Louisiana?
Yes. North Louisiana gets coots from October through April, in numbers that range from modest to enormous depending on the year and the water conditions. In North Louisiana's managed impoundments, coot grazing pressure on aquatic vegetation is a real consideration in water management. American coots are not breeding birds in North Louisiana — the nearest nesting populations are in the coastal marsh and the Prairie Pothole breeding grounds to the north.
How do you identify American Coot?
The coot is dark gray to black overall — sooty, coal-colored, without the pattern variation of most waterfowl. The bill is white with a dark band near the tip and a small red spot at the base of the frontal shield. The frontal shield itself — the fleshy plate that extends from the base of the bill up the forehead — is white with a reddish-brown spot near the top between the eyes. The eyes are red
What does American Coot eat?
What They Eat and Who Eats Them
Coots are omnivorous generalists, eating aquatic vegetation, algae, seeds, insects, tadpoles, small fish, snails, CRAWFISH, and whatever else they can reach by dabbling, diving, or grazing on land. They dive deeper than most dabbling ducks and come up with bottom material that surface feeders cannot reach. They graze on land. They steal from birds that already did the work. They eat eggs of other birds when they find them. The coot is not a picky eater and it is not above anything.
The ecological footprint of a coot population is significant. One estimate from a Virginia wintering population suggested local coots consumed 216 tons of vegetation per winter, dry weight. In North Louisiana's managed impoundments, coot grazing pressure on aquatic vegetation is a real consideration in water management.
When coot numbers are high and aquatic plant production is marginal, coots can noticeably reduce the vegetation cover that other waterfowl need — which is one reason WMA managers sometimes consider coot management as part of their broader waterfowl habitat strategy. A managed impoundment with 5,000 coots eating vegetation through January is a different impoundment in February than one without them.
In return, coots are eaten by nearly everything. Locally, coots can comprise more than 80 percent of the bald eagle diet during winter — they are the right size, they are abundant, they sit in open water, and they cannot take off quickly. A bald eagle that has figured out where the winter coot concentration is has a reliable food source for the season.
Northern harriers, great horned owls, golden eagles, bobcats, American alligators, and large fish all take coots regularly. The species compensates with population size and productivity rather than evasion. The coot's survival strategy is essentially: there are too many of us. It is working well enough that 7 million coots exist on a continent that has been losing wetlands for two centuries, which says something about what happens when a species is not particularly picky about habitat quality and is not particularly easy for predators to catch every time.
Is American Coot dangerous to people?
No. This species is not dangerous to people when it is observed without handling or disturbance
