The (meteoric) spring has arrived (although you wouldn’t tell by the temperature yet). One of the things you see a lot now are quarreling coots (Fulica atra).

You see them (sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs) with their heads with white blaze and red eyes low over the water, raising the feathers backwards, they look like a kind of battleships, menacing at each other and now and then a sharp swipe with the legs or beak at the opponent. And if that doesn’t help, they’re chasing each other. Then you see the ‘victim’ ‘walking’ across the water to escape the pursuer, as in this photo. And it’s a good thing they can escape, because I’ve seen a number of times how a victim was just drowned! They are certainly not afraid: If, for example, a swan (about 20 times heavier) comes near the nest, they will still attack that large white clumsy.

They are actually swamp birds. The lobed toes make it easy to walk over floating plants and roots of reeds, etc. But you can see them everywhere where there is fresh water, especially where there is a large vegetation on the banks. But also very bare shoring is inhabited. In winter you often see them in large groups together. If they are startled by something, you see them running / flying away with the very large group.

The difference between the male and female is that the females are slightly larger and heavier: around 900 grams against 600 grams. But the forehead plate of the males is generally larger.

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