![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/american-coot-2749b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"american-coot-2749b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nCoots have strange feet anyway so when one or both of them has defects things can get a little weird.<\/p>\n
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This is a speed skating coot on ice with normal feet, at least what passes for ‘normal’ in American Coots. Like most (though not all) birds coots have 3 forward pointing toes and one, the hallux, that points backward. Their toes have distinctive lateral lobes, indented at each toe segment. The color of their legs and oversized feet varies from yellow-green to yellow-orange.<\/p>\n
I’m only including the photo above to show what coot feet normally look like.<\/p>\n
Yesterday while searching through my files in search of something else I stumbled across a coot photo that caught my attention because of the bird’s unusual feet, unusual even for a coot.<\/p>\n
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I’m not even sure why I saved the photo – in most ways it certainly isn’t one I’d typically keep.<\/p>\n
What first caught my eye yesterday was the unusual bulbous reddish swelling at the tip of one of the toes on its left foot. But when I looked more carefully it became apparent that the entire left foot and part of the lower leg were far from normal. And even the right foot may have anomalies.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/american-coot-2667-big-crop-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"american-coot-2667-big-crop-ron-dudley\\"")
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I’m far from an expert on coot feet but to my untrained eye the following foot features appear to be atypical:<\/p>\n
I don’t remember this bird having trouble walking nor do I recall noticing anything else unusual about it in the field.<\/p>\n
At first I thought only the left foot was atypical and wondered if its anomalies could be caused by fishing line that we can’t see cutting off its circulation. But since both feet seem to be affected to varying degrees some kind of congenital defect seems more likely to me.<\/p>\n
Any thoughts from my readers? You may wonder why I even care, especially at this late date, but it isn’t particularly unusual for me to see bird anomalies in the field and I like to have at least some insight into their possible cause. There are many rehabbers, falconers, veterinarians and others who see my blog and are generous with their experience and knowledge about such things so in situations similar to this I like to reach out to them for help and advice.<\/p>\n
And sometimes it’s the average Joe or Joanna who comes up with the eventual answer that is most likely correct.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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Coots have strange feet anyway so when one or both of them has defects things can get a little weird.<\/p>\n