New Coots?
The Coots that stay here year round — and this year that’s been only three or four, as far as I could tell — usually hang out around the Open Circle viewpoint and feed on the ample seaweed on the rocks there at low tide. That’s why this compact group of six American Coots cruising southward two hundred yards below the viewpoint caught my attention. In the winter, the Coot population tends to explode as migrants arrive. It could be that this sixpack are the leading edge of that migration.
Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see. The bird migration this year is a bit late, and every “new” bird rekindles the flame of anticipation. Well, there’s no way to rush the feather river.
