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IDENTITY OF PERUVIAN MYSTERY COOT

Photos of mystery coot on Birding Peru site

Analysis

The Pantanos de Villa coot is indeed a strange one. It is obvious why the coot was thought to be a Red-fronted Coot, as it shows a nice red shield, contrasting with a yellow bill. This is classic Red-fronted Coot, but structurally this bird is not like a Red-fronted Coot. The Red-fronted Coot is a very moorhen-like coot, with a flat-backed look, long tail which it tends to cock up and large and usually flaring white undertail coverts.

Red-fronted Coot 1 shows the general structure of the bird, moorhen like. Flat back, long tail with large and flaring white undertail coverts. The bill is bright yellow and the frontal shield is blood red. A couple of things to look at in the bill structure is that the frontal shield is moderately narrow, it does not flare outwards towards the eyes, and it comes to a point up at the top. The White-winged Coot which has a rather variable shield colour has a broad and rounded frontal shield which is rounded at the top. The point shown at the top of the frontal shield in the Peru bird eliminates White-winged as an option. Apart from the structural differences between a typical Red-fronted Coot and the Peru mystery coot, note also that the Red-fronted shows red at the side and base of the bill (gape). This is lacking on the Peru mystery Coot.

My thought is that the Peru mystery coot is an abnormally pigmented Red-gartered Coot!

Red-gartered Coot 1 This photo shows a standard Red-gartered Coot. The shield is yellow and the bill is yellow, but they are divided by a series of blood red patches. There is one patch along the midline of the bill, the "saddle" and a patch along the base of the upper mandible. The two patches are divided by a yellow hair line. Also there is a small red patch at the base of the lower mandible, but not the extensive red of the Red-fronted Coot. The shield comes to a point at the top, but unlike the Red-fronted Coot, the shield expands outwards towards the eyes, looking wider, rather than the narrow shielded look of Red-fronted Coot. The body structure is more typically coot-like, with a short tail and not nearly as much white on the undertail as on a Red-fronted Coot.

Red-fronted Coot 2. Another photo to show the structure and large white undertail coverts of this coot. The shield's shape, being long, narrow and pointed creates an odd bump on the forehead of a Red-fronted Coot. They do not look as round headed as either Red-gartered or White-winged Coots.

Red-gartered Coot 2 Another view to show the structure of the shield, broadens and then ends in a point. Also shows the shapes of the red patches on the bill. Have a look at the Peru mystery coot and these red patches are there, just difficult to see their extent due to the reddish color of the shield.

The Peru mystery coot shows another Red-gartered Coot feature, that is yellowish legs with a small reddish patch (the garter) towards the base of the tibia. Photo 3 shows this particularly well. Red-fronted Coots have greenish legs.

How about a coot x moorhen hybrid. Well, there are some features that can be explained by that, such as the red shield and yellow bill, leg color and the red garter. However there are some other points that suggest that this is not the case. These are that the Peru mystery coot shows no structural intermediacy between a coot and a moorhen. In the Americas moorhens have broad shields that end in a straight truncated top, rather than a point, or sometimes there is more of a three pointed crown shape. The Peru bird shows no suggestion of this. It also has very little white on the undertail coverts, again bad for moorhen. I don't know that I can actually entirely rule out a moorhen x coot hybrid, but this is a lot more steps than a Red-fronted Coot with an abnormally red shield. I have never seen such a bird in the wild, but given the extreme variation that coots can show in general in terms of shield color (Hawaiian, American, White-winged and Andean as examples) I am more comfortable thinking that this is a Red-gartered Coot.

I think if folks generally accept this rather cumbersome identification, this would be a new record for Peru. White-winged Coot, which has also never been recorded in Peru I have seen in Arica, Chile only 19 km from the Peruvian border, again another one that has to be looked for in Peru.

Alvaro