American Coot

Fulica americana

American Coots are common transients and rare summer residents in Missouri (Robbins and Easterla 1992). They tend to breed in large, undisturbed wetlands interspersed with patches of emergent vegetation. Typical breeding areas are approximately half open water and half emergent vegetation (Sanderson 1977). Coots are fairly difficult to locate when breeding because they nest in densely vegetated marsh habitat. Nests, which are mounds of dead vegetation that project above the water level, are typically well hidden. Their presence is often best revealed by their courtship vocalizations and searches of marsh vegetation are usually required to obtain further evidence of breeding.

Coots were apparently more common in the past. Widmann (1907) described them as "not very rare" breeders in suitable locations, not only in the floodplains of the large rivers, but in the prairie and Ozark regions.

Code Frequency

American Coots were recorded in only 15 blocks during the seven-year Atlas Project. The small number of reports was likely due to the scarcity of breeders and difficulty in searching marsh habitat. In addition, non-nesting individuals occasionally summer in Missouri, and this further complicates attempts to document which are breeders. Although non-breeders may have been counted as some of the possible and probable breeding records, breeding was likely more widespread and common than indicated by the four blocks in which breeding was confirmed. Some of the possible and probable breeding locations were conceivably breeding areas that could not be explored thoroughly enough to obtain higher evidence.

Distribution

The data indicate American Coots breed throughout Missouri and support the contention (Robbins and Easterla 1992) that they are rare breeders. The loss of suitable wetland habitat during this century has apparently reduced the number of American Coots breeding in Missouri.

Phenology

Due to a scarcity of confirmed breeding evidence, few substantial data were obtained on the breeding phenology of American Coots in Missouri. The observation of hatching-year young on June 19 indicates nesting would have begun in late April or early May. Considering these dates, reproduction may occasionally be imperiled by the drying of marsh habitats in late spring and summer.

Breeding Evidence

Reported in 15 (1.2%) of 1,207 blocks

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