Wild Bird Wednesday: Eurasian or Australian Coot

The Eurasian Coot, with its sooty-black plumage and gleaming white bill and frontal shield covering its forehead, is a familiar bird across Europe and Asia as well as Australia. The Australian subspecies is known as the Australian Coot. It is a member of the rail and crake bird family, the Rallidae.

The Australian Coot is often seen running across the water’s surface or swimming in huge flocks on large wetlands, but they equally often occur on small ponds. They require submerged aquatic vegetation or mats of floating waterweed, among which they forage, diving below the surface for up to 20 seconds, or plucking the stems of emergent shoots.

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