Description: 15" Gray duck-like bird with a white bill and frontal shield, white undertail coverts, and lobed toes, frontal shield has a red swelling at its upper edge, visible at close range, immatures similar but paler.
I have heard of them being taken by falcons out in the salt marshes. But they are usually in open water so are hard to hunt with a bird. The ones that are killed are usually legal accidents as they might come up from a ditch when we flush the black ducks for a falcon. We find them mostly in salt water here, some times they come into my spread when out sea duck hunting.
Coots stay extremely close to water and will go directly back in the water when approached. They are hard to get off a pond and will go from side to side or end to end of the pond especially when you have a falcon in the air. We have tons of them and every year a few are caught, but, most falconers stay away from them.
I know a couple have been caught by my sponsor, very ratty in flight , I've never seen them higher than a couple of feet while duck hunting. They'd rather dive than fly. Kurt
Post by profalconer on Oct 31, 2008 16:45:48 GMT -5
Coots are the slowest and easiest to catch... My buddy has caught hundreds with his male harris! One flight I remember pulled up to a coot on the other side of a fence and got the bird unhooded it lifted it up to see the coot, this coot didn't get a foot before it was caught. His bird will also bind to them in water and swim them in. I was out with a longwinger at a golf course, his bird took off the fist went around a hill and caught one, then went up and took one off the pond, then went up again and took another. They are retarded
Post by borderhawk on Oct 31, 2008 17:21:18 GMT -5
I have a series of photos filed away somewhere of a Bald Eagle in WA taking coots in open water. It was a huge flock of them and they would all dive under, the eagle would then hover a few feet over the waters surface waiting for them to come up for air and take shots at them. It eventually got one but was so exhausted it floated in the water for awhile before swimming to shore with the coot in it's feet. The final pic in the series has the baldie floating and you can just barely see the coot it caught trying to stick it's head above water to breath. Looked like something an Osprey would be good at.
I was out with a longwinger at a golf course, his bird took off the fist went around a hill and caught one, then went up and took one off the pond, then went up again and took another. They are retarded
My hubby's P falcon caught and killed them just for the fun of it, but she refused to eat them. Apparently, to her, they tasted yucky. She killed many crows too, but wouldn't eat them either. Picky P.
very cool pics, dumb coot!!! they usually dive under the water but bald eagles can hunt below the water line . a redtail might have to swim to shore with that catch...
Post by squirrelhawker08 on Dec 1, 2008 11:39:12 GMT -5
I know of a guy in south Florida that hunted them exclusively in the drainage canal system. He would be on one side and his kids or friends on the other. They were easy to flush out of the narrow canals and his redtail would make short work of them.