Eurasian Coot

Voice

A wide range of loud, short calls: an explosive kowk, a sharp pitts and metallic clicking notes. They carry far across water and are heard all year, but most of all in spring during boundary disputes, including at night.

Identification

Uniformly sooty black waterbird with a striking white bill and frontal shield and a red iris. In flight — rare, and only after a long pattering run — a narrow white trailing edge to the secondaries shows and the big grey-green lobed feet trail beyond the tail. Juveniles are dull grey with a whitish throat and no shield.

Confusion species

Moorhen is smaller and browner, with a red and yellow bill, a white flank stripe and white sides to the undertail coverts. A lone Coot at sea is sometimes claimed as a scoter, but head and bill shape settle it. In Iberia the real pitfall is Red-knobbed Coot, with two red knobs above the shield.

Habitat

Almost any fresh water with some fringing vegetation: ditches, lakes, canals, town ponds, rivers and large reservoirs. In winter also on shallow brackish water, and sometimes grazing in flocks on adjoining grass and playing fields.

Range and movements

Breeds throughout Europe and, in the Netherlands, on virtually every waterway right into city centres. Northern and eastern birds move ahead of the frost and gather on ice-free water in western Europe and Iberia, where Spanish reservoirs and coastal lagoons hold large winter concentrations.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Visit a pond or lake with many pairs early on a March morning: that is when the fights happen, two birds rearing back in the water and striking at each other with their feet. For the red-headed chicks, May is the month.

Conservation status

Common and not threatened, though numbers fluctuate locally with hard winters, botulism outbreaks and the clearing of bankside vegetation. It benefits from nutrient-rich and urban waters; in southern Europe the loss of lagoon habitat is the main concern.