Never underestimate the importance of a body language (HA!)

One topic that's more easily researched via the internet is the American Coot. Many of the papers available online were written by one Gordon G. Gullion, who studied coots back in the 1950s, right here in Lake Temescal and Jewel Lake (in Tilden). One of his papers that I got interested in describes the displays, or body language, or the coots. I started looking for these different supermodel poses on the coots of Lake Merritt and trying to capture them. Here are a few of the displays he describes:

1. Charging. One coot sees another one getting too close to its space, or its lady, or its bit of goopy algae. It raises its little neck feathers, puts down its head, and rushes toward the offending coot. FIERCE!



2. Paired Display, which Gullion says is a sort of pacification gesture that both coots do after the aggression is over: "Sorry I charged you, man."

"That's cool, that's cool. I was going back to my own side of the lake anyway."


Here's a link to another interesting article about coots.