We have coots. The bird variety and not old codgers, although we have some of those, too. When they first showed up last year, first in twosies, gradually growing into the hundreds, we went to our trusty bird ID guide. Of course, like most people, we went to the duck section. No such luck. Apparently everyone tends to search on the Internet for ducks with fat gray bodies, black heads and white chicken bills. There it was - the coot.

Apparently, these are American coots. They look a lot like guinea hens and travel in armadas - all going in one direction until something happens. Then it becomes a free-for-all with lots of strange noises, diving, and twittering around. Because their bodies are so round, it appears they prefer to paddle, as taking off requires quite a bit of effort. When disturbed, it's quite entertaining (and mean, if we doing the disturbing for entertainment purposes).

Here are our coots, technically known as a "cover," but we call them all sorts of things. After all, in the city, we - the formerly clueless - only knew coots as drooling old dodgy men with pinchy fingers.

Special thanks to the US gov photo site for the single picture above. We'd never be able to get that close. My super zoom lens and Nikon have gone the way of the dinosaurs because there are no close places to have pictures developed, anyway. The flock is all ours, taken with a digital camera, of course. What in the heck would we do without instant gratification, even out in the middle-of-nowhere?