It’s that time of year when birds quarrel frequently, over territories, over females, over nest sites, and Coots are the masters of quarrelling.

First, their heads go down and their wings go up, presumably to make their profile look larger and more threatening to the opposition. And then, if the opposition doesn’t back down – and, in my experience, Coots rarely shy away from a fight, they attack.

Things can get very heated very quickly, and Coots use their large feet as weapons, hitting out at each other, latching on and pushing their opponents under the water, sometimes almost drowning them.

Fortunately, the fights rarely last very long, and I’ve never seen any injuries on the birds. So, perhaps their disputes look more vicious than they actually are.