The American Coot, Fulica americana, is a widespread waterbird found across North America, often mistaken for a duck due to its aquatic habits. It is easily recognized by its dark, slate-gray body feathers, which contrast sharply with a prominent, bright white bill and a small white frontal shield on its forehead. The coot is a highly adaptable resident of shallow freshwater marshes, ponds, and lakes, particularly those with dense emergent vegetation. Unlike true ducks, the American Coot belongs to the rail family, Rallidae, and its lobed feet distinguish it as a specialized aquatic forager.
Primary Plant-Based Diet
The American Coot is fundamentally an herbivore, deriving the vast majority of its sustenance from aquatic vegetation. They consume a wide array of plant material, including the foliage, stems, and seeds of submerged species. Preferred foods include pondweed, wild celery, water milfoil, and wild rice, which thrive in their freshwater habitats.
The coot’s diet also regularly incorporates algae, which they graze from the water’s surface or retrieve from below. They also feed heavily on floating plants like duckweed, along with the roots and tubers of marsh grasses and sedges. This willingness to consume vegetation that many other waterfowl overlook allows coots to flourish and maintain high population densities in wetland environments.
Secondary Animal Matter
While plants form the bulk of their intake, American Coots are opportunistic omnivores and supplement their diet with animal matter. This concentrated protein is especially important for egg production and chick growth during the breeding season. The animal component of their diet includes a variety of aquatic invertebrates.
They regularly consume insects and their larvae, snails, mollusks, and crustaceans like crayfish. Coots also occasionally prey on small vertebrates, such as tadpoles and small fish, when available. In rare instances, they consume the eggs of other marsh birds, highlighting their flexible approach to foraging.
Specialized Feeding Techniques
The American Coot employs diverse foraging behaviors to exploit its varied diet, utilizing methods that differ from most other waterfowl. They frequently graze on land, moving along shorelines to clip grass and terrestrial plants, much like a small goose. In the water, they use two primary methods to access food: dabbling at the surface and diving.
For submerged plants, coots will tip their bodies head-down in shallow water or use their powerful legs to propel themselves into full dives, sometimes reaching depths of up to 20 feet. The coot possesses large, yellow-green feet with unique lobes on each toe. These lobed feet fold back when the bird lifts them, facilitating walking on land, but spread out when kicking, providing efficient propulsion for swimming and stabilizing the bird during deep dives.
Coots are also known for kleptoparasitism, where they aggressively steal aquatic vegetation brought to the surface by diving ducks. This behavior provides a successful shortcut to obtaining food.
Dietary Shifts Across Seasons and Life Stages
The coot’s diet changes substantially depending on the time of year and the bird’s developmental needs. During spring and summer, the diet consists primarily of fresh, actively growing green vegetation and the high-protein animal matter required for reproduction. As seasons change and plant growth slows, the adult diet shifts toward more energy-dense food items.
In autumn and winter, they rely more heavily on seeds, rhizomes, and the tubers of aquatic plants, which provide necessary calories for survival. Hatchlings require a high-protein intake for rapid growth. For the first 30 days, juvenile coots may consume as much as 84% animal matter, largely insects, before gradually transitioning to a predominantly plant-based diet similar to adults.