Favoritos de lonnyholmes

singing his heart out

presumably a young bird in its first breeding season, with incomplete transition to its breeding plumage. I am assuming that a non-breeding male (another possible explanation for the incomplete breeding plumage) would not be singing.

fledglings - no adult in nest

April 27 2024 - the nest is now empty - all having relocated from it as of the early morning on April 24. The absence of the adult female in these photos may have been the first step in doing so.

the female of the resident pair. She has just called (kek kek) for the male who was in the nearby nest doing what looked like final preparations for occupancy by the female - adding more sticks and moving others around.
In this and the last photo in the series the distended belly of the female can be seen. These photos were taken about three days before she took to the nest to incubate (either April 6 or 7).

The second photo shows the male approaching within two minutes of the call from the female

The third and fourth photos are of the mating.

The last photo is after the mating, the male's lower body is visible at the lower right side of the photo

fight between two American Coots, with a non-combatant onlooker that appears in photos 2-4. The fighting went on for about 20 minutes. The onlooker arrived shortly after the fight began and remained near the scene throughout.