Red Gartered Coot, Palermo Park, March 2011 with Philip

The Red-gartered Coot (Fulica armillata) is a species of bird in the Rallidae family. At 45 cm (18 in) in length, it is a fairly large species of coot. It is found in Argentina, southern Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, and is a vagrant to Bolivia and the Falkland Islands. Its natural habitats are swamps and freshwater lakes.
Scientific Name: Fulica armillata
Species Authority: Vieillot, 1817
Common Name: Red-gartered Coot

The Red-gartered Coot is a resident bird which breeds at Costanera. Two other coot species coexist in the pond: the White-winged and the Red-fronted Coots. It is stubby and its wings are not well adapted to fly.
Both male and female cooperate in nest building. They use vegetal material which they pile up and arrange on a solid base. They look for material anywhere and it is common to watch them return from far with twigs in their bill. They are very dilligent. Both may be away on the search or one of them arranges what the other one brings.
The nest is surrounded by water and anchored to a clump of reeds.

This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). The population trend is not known, but the population is not believed to be decreasing sufficiently rapidly to approach the thresholds under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.


Red-gartered Coot, Fulica armillata