A pair of coots owns it. Other birds can be in the pond. The ruddy ducks aren’t a problem. The yellowlegs, great egret, and blue heron can work the shore. The scaup and blue winged teal can paddle about. Wilson’s snipe; fine. Doves, killdeer, and grackles coming down to drink; no big deal. But no other coots are allowed.
The problem is; more coots want to live in this pond. Any other coot touches the water though, and the resident coots turn into half-submerged attack submarines, heads straight out on extended necks at water level, clucking and scolding. At one point it escalated into a splash fight, two sets of coots, each bird locked up with another at the feet, flapping and squawking wildly, each trying to gain the advantage and submerge the other. It was like watching bull elk locked in mortal combat except it wasn’t mortal combat and they’re not bull elk. They’re ducks. It was a splash fight.
We left on a side-trip for three days. When we left, the two coots in the pond were holding off five intruding coots ganged up on the grass at the edge of the pond, probing for a weakness in the defense. None of the new coots was able to stay in the water yet, but it was a continuing assault.
Three days later, the rules have been rewritten. We come home and there are twelve birds in the pond, four of them coots. There are now two pair of coots in the pond. They don’t tolerate each other well, it takes lots of squawking, clucking, and sometimes chasing and splashing to reinforce the limits, but it is now a four coot pond.
