My heart sank when I saw a coot sitting alone on a bed of reeds at the Waterworks Reserve. A day previously the doting female had been fussing over four tiny chicks. Now my worst fear appeared to have been confirmed – a goshawk had come to call.
I had watched this happy family from the beginning of spring when a coot pair began a courting ritual on the open waters of one of the reservoirs before gathering the reeds to build what became a huge nest standing about half a metre high.
The male had circled the female, with gifts of food, before she accepted him as her mate and they then began gathering material for the nest.
Soon she was incubating eggs and after a few weeks it was clear that chicks had hatched – the female appeared restless, little bodies writhing beneath her. Then the head of the first of what turned out to be four tiny chicks protruded from beneath the female’s body, chirping loudly as the male brought food, standard coot fare of aquatic vegetation.
The chicks ventured from the nest within a few days, following their mother down to the water. With yellow and red bare-skin heads, on downy black bodies, the offspring were in marked contrast to the jet-black adult coot plumage, distinguished by a white face mask.
The coots were models of parenting, shepherding two chicks each so they could be both protected and taught to gather food for themselves, before ushering them back to the nest. All the while, though, I watched for raptors. Coot nests are often hidden in reeds and this one couldn’t have been more exposed, jutting into the water. The chicks would be easy prey for a goshawk, even if the coot eggs had escaped the attention of forest ravens.
My focus is not normally on Eurasian coots. They are common in Tasmania, as they are across much of the northern world, but I did take note when they first turned up at the Waterworks about 10 years ago. And now they were breeding there for the first time.
Although coots are classed as rails, they differ markedly from the other members of the family because they are largely aquatic with partially webbed feet. They are easily confused with ducks while Tasmania’s most common rail, the native-hen, feeds in wet grassland, although they are also strong swimmers.
Native-hens also conceal their nests and the ones breeding at the reserve never use exposed sites.
The coots, meanwhile, had been foolish and had paid the price. Or so I thought. As I watched the female, her mate made his way to the nest from open water with his usual beakful of food. As he approached, four tiny heads with beaks open thrust from under the female’s body.
Breakfast had arrived, and all was well in the coot world.