The American Coot looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and floats in duck-like rafts, but it is not a duck at all — it is a member of the rail family, and its oddities give it away. In place of webbed feet it has big greenish toes edged with fleshy lobes, and instead of a flat duck bill it sports a chalky-white, chicken-like bill topped by a small reddish shield on the forehead. It pumps its head back and forth as it swims and patters noisily across the water to take flight.
Coots are abundant on Michigan's marshes, ponds, and lake edges, gathering in large rafts during migration that can number in the hundreds. They are aggressive and quarrelsome, squabbling constantly over feeding spots, and they dabble, dive, and graze on shore for aquatic plants and algae. Adaptable and hardy, some linger on open water into winter, though most move south when the marshes freeze.
Mostly vegetarian, eating aquatic plants, algae, and seeds gathered by dabbling, diving, and grazing on land, with some insects, snails, and small aquatic animals mixed in. It will up-end like a duck, dive fully under, or walk ashore to feed on grasses and waste grain.
No. Despite swimming in ducklike flocks, the American Coot is a rail. Its white chicken-like bill and lobed (not webbed) toes are the giveaways that set it apart from true ducks.
Coots have relatively small wings for their weight, so they need a running, wing-flapping takeoff, pattering across the surface to build up enough speed to become airborne.
On marshes, ponds, and lake edges, often in large rafts during migration. They feed on and around open water with emergent vegetation and are quick to squabble over space and food.
Coot chicks are black with a shock of orange-red down around the head and neck and a red bill — the color prompts adults to feed them, and the brightest chicks tend to be fed most. It fades to plain gray within weeks.
A raft, or more traditionally a covert. Coot rafts on Michigan lakes in fall can run into the thousands, and the whole mass will pattern across the water together when a Bald Eagle passes over.
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