The American Coot or sometime called the “Mud Hen”
This 13″ to 16″ waterfowl is not a duck. It has large lobed toes instead of webbed feet. It is the only “duck like” bird with a white bill. They are excellent divers. And seem to be the least afraid of us two legged creatures. Especially when photographing from a car. Or in this case, yesterday I sat for awhile and the Coots got used to me and came back to their fishing grounds.
To get this type of shot I always try to keep the shutter speed above 1/5000 of a second. It is critical because the bird moves very fast. I always shoot in aperture priority mode. And as usual I shot wide open with an aperture of – f/4. With the ISO at 800 the camera gave me a shutter speed of 1/6400 second. And as usual I compensated by -3.
The shot was clean and pretty darn sharp. Got the Coot running on water!
