![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/american-coot-8765-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt must be awkward at times to have feet large enough to wrap several times around your own head. That’s what came to mind the first time I saw this image.<\/p>\n
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1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 1600, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I photographed this young American Coot eleven days ago at Red Rock Lakes NWR in southwest Montana as it fastidiously cleaned its left foot. It spent almost a minute doing so but never did attend to the other foot. I thought it was an effective pose to emphasize the size if that incredible foot.<\/p>\n Coots are not ducks. They may look like a duck, swim like a duck and dive like a duck but they are rails, not ducks. They definitely don’t quack like a duck and their chicken-like bill is very different from that of a duck. They’re more closely related to cranes than they are to ducks but in some ways they’re quite unique – including their feet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a heavily cropped image of the same bird doing a leg stretch. The toes of coots are not webbed like those of ducks. Instead their toes have distinctive lateral lobes that are indented at each toe segment. Some of the lobes can be clearly seen here on the right side of the longest toe (on the others they’re folded over the toe and not seen well in this image).<\/p>\n One advantage of lobed feet over webbed feet is the ability to run.\u00a0 Many ducks generally don’t even try to run, partly\u00a0because webbed feet would make doing so\u00a0more\u00a0difficult. Coots are very\u00a0good runners and in fact they run across the surface of the water in order to take off. Webbed feet would hinder that ability.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Coots also fight with their feet. If their feet were webbed they would make less effective weapons.<\/p>\n I realize that there’s not much new here for many readers but so many folks mistakenly refer to coots as ducks that I thought a clarifying post was in order.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It must be awkward at times to have feet large enough to wrap several times around your own head.<\/p>\n![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/american-coot-8752b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/american-coot-2428-ron-dudley1.jpg\")
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