Reader Afonso Gonçalves photographed a bird on August 15 at Lagoa do Lugar de Baixo on the island of Madeira and found five individuals of the common coot and a sixth one with the upper part of the beak yellowish, seeming to him to be the species Fulica leucoptera, which does not occur in Portugal. The reader sent the photographs to Wilder to ask for help with identification.
Gonçalo Elias, responsible for the Aves de Portugal portal, identified the bird as a common coot (Fulica atra). Although the yellowish shield might suggest the white-winged coot Fulica leucoptera, which is resident in South America, the bird in the photo does not belong to that species, since the configuration of the feathers near the beak does not match. It was a common coot with a stained shield, possibly due to dirt in the lagoon waters.
According to the specialist, the coot is the size of a small duck and is identified by its black plumage, with white beak and frontal shield, and webbed lobed toes. This bird can be seen in coastal lagoons, marshes, ponds and reservoirs, preferring medium or large-sized wetland areas with submerged vegetation and shallow areas with emerging vegetation.
Until the end of the 1990s, an annual hunt of coots was customary at the lagoon of Santo André, on the Alentejo coast. However, in the year 2000, this wetland area was classified as a natural reserve and hunting was no longer practiced.
