This past week in my travels I stopped at the parking area at Allamuchy Pond in Allamuchy Mountain State Park.  There I noticed a plump dark bird, diving and swimming, just off shoreline.  Checked it out with my binoculars at it’s an American Coot.  Get my camera and get out of the car, no Coot!  Must have moved into the shoreline out of my sight hidden by trees and bushes. 

And so this past Saturday March 26^th I am trying to figure what my Photo of the Week article is going to be about and I remember I have some photos and videos of a Coot in the wetlands adjacent to Lake Aeroflex at Kittatinny Valley State Park.  **FYI Lake Aeroflex is the deepest glacial lake in the State with a depth of 110 feet and it and Gardner’s Pond form part of the headwaters for the Pequest River.** 

I go to my Flickr site and verify I have a Coot album with both photos and videos of a Coot diving and eating aquatic grasses in the runoff waters after the dam leading to Gardner’s Pond. The photos were taken February 19, 2016.  I have my Photo of the Week article!

COOT FACTS AND FIGURES

I was able to glean much information through some research.

The American Coot is a plump, chickenlike bird with a rounded head and a sloping bill.  Their tiny tail, short wings and large feet are visible on the rare occasions they take flight.  They are dark-gray to black birds with a bright-white bill and forehead.  The legs are yellow-green.  At close range you may see a small patch of red on the forehead.  Coots are tough, adaptable waterbirds.  Although they are related to the secretive rails, they swim in the open like ducks eating aquatic plants (and often dive) but when they walk about on shore, making themselves at home on golf courses and city parks, they look more chickenlike, walking rather than waddling..  Usually in flocks, they are aggressive and noisy, making a wide variety of calls by day or night.  They have strong legs and big feet with lobed toes, and coots fighting over territorial boundaries will rear up and attack each other with their feet. 

Often seen walking on open ground near ponds.  Coots are an awkward and often clumsy flyer. They require long running takeoffs, when they literally, must patter across the water, flapping their wings furiously, before becoming airborne

MORE BACKGROUND

                     Conservation Status – Still abundant in many areas, although it has decreased in recent decades in some areas, especially in the east.

                     Family – Rails, Gallinules and Coots  (Note – Coots are the most aquatic members of their family, moving on open water like ducks and often feeding with them.)

                     Habitat –  Ponds, lakes, marshes; in winter, also fields, park ponds, salt bays.  For breeding season requires fairly shallow fresh water with much marsh vegetation.  At all other seasons may be in almost any aquatic habitat, including ponds or reservoirs with bare shorelines, open ground near lakes, on salt marshes or protected coastal bays.  Migrants sometimes are seen out at sea some distance from land.

                     Feeding Behavior – Wide variety of foraging methods – dabbles at surface of water, upends in shallows, dives underwater (propelled by feet), grazes on land.  Also steals food from various ducks.

                     Diet – Omnivorous.  Eats mostly plant material, including stems, leaves, and seeds of pondweeds, sedges, grasses, and many others, also much algae.  Also eats insects, tadpoles, fish, worms, snails, crayfish, prawns, and eggs of other birds.

                     Nesting, Eggs and Young – Very aggressive in defense of nesting territory.  In courtship, male may pursue female across the water.  Displays include swimming with head and neck lowered, wings arched, tail raised to show off white patches.  Nest site is among tail marsh vegetation in shallow water.  The nest (built by both sexes) is a floating platform of dead cattails, bulrushes, sedges, lined with finer materials, anchored to standing plants.  Several similar platforms may be built, only one or two used for nesting.  Coots have usually 6-11 eggs in a nest.  Nest with more than 12 eggs probably indicate laying by more than 1 female.  Incubation done by both the male and female, 21 -25 days.  The young can swim well soon after hatching; follow the parents and are fed by them.  At night, young are brooded on a nest-like platform built by the male.  Young probably able to fly at about 7-8 weeks after hatching.  Coots have 1 or 2 broods per year.

                    Migration – Some populations probably permanent resident, others migratory.  May winter as far north as open water permits.  Probably migrates mostly at night.

                    Measurements for both sexes – Length 15.5-16.9 inches  Weight 21.2-24.7 ounces  Wingspan 23.0-25.0 inches  Relative size – between a robin and a crow or about 2/3 the size of a mallard.

Please visit my Flickr site to watch several videos of an American Coot diving and foraging among the reeds – https://www.flickr.com/photos/charliefineran/albums/72157662535959773/with/25133553645/

Enjoy Your Open Space

Charlie Fineran  

Director Open Space  

Allamuchy Township Environmental Commission – Chairman

Allamuchy Historical Society – President