Lingering Waterfowl including American Coots

If that round number on the calendar does not make this a memorable winter, then the amazing weather certainly will. We have only really begun, but so far the bare ground and balmy air have made it easier for migrating wildlife to stay and survive in our region.

One group of animals that benefits is waterfowl. Chief of these is the Canada goose, which has become a permanent mainstay of our rivers, lakes, and fields. In lines and vees, they range back and forth low in the skies almost all day long, usually honking as they go. Every large lawn or cut over corn field provides delectable grass and cobs to fill their bottomless gullets.

Reservoirs and golf courses have begun to use ingenious methods to keep them away, from noisemakers to border collies. Even on water bodies that are not drinking water, they can be a nuisance. Their numbers help to keep parts of a lake open, so they freeze unevenly and make ice safety more unpredictable.

Many other ducks take advantage of this artificially open water and linger longer before fleeing to the warmer coastline ponds and river harbors. There were very few ducks on Lake Congamond this year during the usually busy autumn migration season, but cold weather to our north finally drove some southward.

That recent cold snap froze one side of the lake, but on the other hundreds of feathered bodies paddled around in the open water or sat on the edge of the ice. Besides the noisy geese, there are the usual gulls, resting from their scavenging at malls and dumps.

There are many mallards, both green headed males and all-brown females, floating and quacking in tight packs. There are quite a few of the wilder black ducks as well. On the Christmas Count in the Springfield area, the counter who covers Forest Park complained about how few of these ducks were at the feeding pool there. Only a long bitter cold spell will force them into this artificial impoundment.

Now they are still finding respite from their feeding labors in the fields at plenty of open ponds and streams. At Congamond they follow the little American coot around, waiting for this hard-working diver to bring up a long weed from the bottom of the lake. Then they grab one end and begin to gobble this succulent salad before the coot can consume it all.

The coot may look and act like a duck, but it is a member of the marsh-loving rail family. It is a prolific species, extremely abundant in winter all through the South. I remember a visit to Lake Okeechobee in Florida, when tens of thousands of these black water birds covered the lake's huge surface. Here a flock of a hundred is impressive enough on our small northern ponds.

This year about twenty coots are still enjoying the open water of Lake Congamond, doing their diving trick, which other rails cannot do. They move about the surface in mime-like stutters and starts and turn on a dime. They surge forward, necks nodding, then duck down and suddenly disappear beneath the water. Shortly, they pop up from the hidden depths.

They are unlike the true diving ducks, which are deliberate in their dives, almost jumping from the surface before they cleave it cleanly, heading for the bottom and staying longer. A few of these divers are present at the Congamond watering hole, ring-necked ducks, greater and lesser scaups, bufflehead, and hooded and common mergansers.

The coots are extremely agile and aggressive, especially toward one another. They flash the bright white bills and foreheads, and chase each other around in endless displays. They are strong swimmers with lobed feet, which have claws they use in attack and defense against each other.

During warmer weather they utter an astounding variety of grunts, chuckles, quacks and chortles. They often hide among the plants where they nest, and the noise lends an additional air of mystery to the marsh.

In cold weather they are at home with the larger ducks and geese in the open water and none disturb them despite their diminutive size. This bird is one tough old coot, spurning the cold and ice, and surviving however it can.