Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Rail family

This photo, of a female Coot lying on her nest, was taken in SW Calgary, on my home from taking part in the annual May Species Count on 27 May 2012. My small group covers an area SW of the city. This species is not a duck, but a member of the Rail family. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coot

Decided I would post my photos late tonight - well, it's 1:00 a.m. - as I will be out at friend Doug's Memorial tomorrow and I know I won't feel like uploading photos afterwards. Took this photo of these adorable baby Coots on 21st June 2011, at a wetland down in the SW of the city.

I thought I would have posted this photo earlier in the summer, but I can't see any sign of it, so thought I'd add it today. I did enjoy watching and trying to photograph the baby Coots in early summer. They are the strangest looking creatures - with their whispy, orange feathers and those dark "eyebrows", lol. They move so fast, too, changing direction constantly!

I have wanted to photograph baby Coots for the last few years and finally got the chance yesterday. They must be one of the funniest and ugliest little birds, so much so that they are adorably CUTE : ) I was watching a different youngster trying to climb over a small branch in the water and it looked almost as if it was doing tthe "log roll" that some humans seem to enjoy. However, once it finally got over the floating branch, that wasn't good enough - it just had to keep going back and forth over it, as if it was having fun, ha. Grrr ... I just accidentally deleted my Fish Creek Park set that contained 1,021 images. I was trying to delete it from one of my Collections, but somehow must have got back into my photostream sets without knowing it. I've tried and tried to create a new set using batch tags, but no luck. Maybe 1,021 images are just too many for it to handle in one go? So, I guess I will have to do what I did originally - add each photo to the new set individually. If anyone has any suggestions or help about adding to a new set as a batch, I would appreciate it greatly - thanks : ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coot

Some people think that Coots are ducks, but in fact they belong to the Rail family - they don't have webbed feet. These babies are so "ugly" that they are cute! Don't you agree, lol? Absolutely love their bright orange head feathers : ) They can swim amazingly fast, darting off in every direction, which makes them a little difficult to photograph. Photographed on June 21st at a wetland in south west Calgary. A few days ago, when I was watching the Coots, I noticed an adult grab hold of a baby several times and viciously shake it. I wonder if that particular youngster had mistaken this adult as its own mother or father? Has anyone else witnessed such behaviour? Poor little thing. A friend also had seen this happening on a different day. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coot www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/american_coot/id

These tiny baby Coots seem to need feeding constantly, lol. Photographed in SW Calgary on June 21st. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Coot