The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-11-09
Coot and Coot Stew.
This Will Interest the Members Of The
CoOt Club.

In the Time Wnen Winter, ScCtlIlS Ills
grip on the Labrador coast, begins to
send occasional storm signals as fore
runners down the coast to Massachusetts
Bay, the sea coot come flying down to
US out of their northern breeding places.
They are in themselves weather signals
to the weatherwise, scudding swiftly
along like black scud torn from the MIN
bus of an approaching northeastern, n.y.
ing high or flying low, inshore or Tar out,
according to the subtle moods of the sea
and the storm which they interpret to
those who have learned the winter Ian
guage of the coast skies. The day may
be as fair and the air as calm as mid
summer moonlight, or the gale be rising
and sending spindrift Suffering over
Minot's lodges and on down to the Dux-
bury sand drifts, but the old sea-dog
huntsmen of the South Shore and the
Cape will read the weather signs in
either case with one eye on the tlocks OF
flying coot.
Ordinarily the birds leave their sum-
mer quarters in Labrador and northern
chusetts coast by the middle of Sep
pulses, the main flight being the second
tober. The last of the birds leave the
Gulf of St. Lawrence under ordinary con-
ditions by November 7th, and the hardi
est of them in mild winters may get
no farther south than the windswept
reaches OF Massachusetts Bay. The main
body spends the winter along shore be-
tween Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras, and
stray birds go much farther south. The
sea coot is not the coot of the poets.
Tennyson, singing OF the brook
l come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down the valley.
meant an entirely different bird from
this big black sea rover that in spite OF
the guns that lie in wait for him from
September until March, lining the coast
from Monhegan to Montauk, and on.
holds his own in numbers along shores
where many game birds are vanishing
and some have already vanished. Ten
nyson's coot is a scaIlop-footed sister
to the gallinules, mud hen that hides
in the marsh grass and is tabled to drop
dead at the sound of gun, it is so
timid, The coot | celebrate is two
foot long sea duck against whose breast
a charge of number four shot may rap
as if against armor and fall back while
the bird wings on undismayed, a sea-
faring bird that scorns the small lakes
and rivers that so many ducks love, and
perhaps owes his survival as much to
that as to mis- ability to turn a charge of
shot.
Yet the sea coot of all three varieties
are by no means confined to the Allan
tic and Pacific seaboards, which they
frequent in large numbers, but are also
found in the interior of the country,
especially on the great lakes and the
Mississippi river where broad expenses
of water give them sea-like conditions.
The breeding grounds of the birds are
Labrador on the east, Alaska on the
west, and the practically UNEMPLOYED,
uninhabited country that lies between,
the g fur country " of British North
America.
Three varieties of bird are commonly
known as ''coot'' to the sea-shore hunts
man of New England. First, perhaps
commonest. is the black coot, American
scooter, Oidemia americana, black from
head to foot, with the feathers on either
side of the bill extending little if any
forward beyond the corner of the mouth.
The bill is black, though it has yell
lowish tint at the base of the upper
mandiole. Even the feet are dark col
ored. This is the smallest of the three,
averaging nineteen inches in length.
Oldemla americana is more common on
the Great Lakes and down the Mississ-
ippi than the other two varieties. Oh
demia persicillata, impolitely known in
Marshfield as ''skunk coot," is a trihe
larger than americana, perhaps an inch
longer, and gets its Marshield name from
certain white markings, square one on
the crown and triangular one on the
nape. The bird has an orange yellow
bill, orange red feet, and yellow iris,
but in habitat and manners differs little
from the preceding species.
Last and largest of all is the Oidemia
deglandi, the white-winged scooter or
white-winged coot, which has the sec
ondaries and upper wing coverts white,
bill that is orange black at the base
and is feathered far beyond the corners
of the mouth. This coot is often TWEEN
ty-two inches in length and is the heav-
lest bird of the three. The chief food
of all varieties is sheilfsh, musses in
particular, which they obtain from the
shadows where they abound and from
off-shore lodges. They dive very rapid
ly and can remain under long time,
thus obtaining their food at high water.
At low tide they Chamber over the lower
surfaces of the lodges exposed and find
it in that way. The inexbaustible sup
plies of marine food that live about low
water mark are theirs for the taking and
and it is no wonder that at this season
coot are plump and lazy and prone to
spend much time in frolicking.
The birds sleep far out at sea, literally
rocked in the cradle of the deep. When
the first crack of dawn lets faint glim-
mer of light through, they come flying
in to select such feeding ground as suits
their fancy and the condition of tide AMI
weather. 1t may be a tide-swept shall
low or an exposed ledge, but whatever it
is it rarely holds them very long. They
are extremely gregarious and fiocks con-
tinually fly along shore to breakfast with
this party or that, taking fruit with one
crowd, so to speak, cereal and coffee
with another, eggs with third, and so
on. The variety of food is everywhere,
and the breakfasters as well. 1t is thus
that the hunters find their opportunity.
At break of day they sail or row out
with wooden decoys, anchoring between
reefs alongside the well travelled route
and setting the decoys afioat. These are
often crude affairs but the coot is apt to
be as full of imagination and good will
as he is Of mussels. The crudest simula-