Eurasian Coot Fulica atra
Common resident, passage migrant and winter visitor.
The Atlas estimated a population of 1,750 breeding pairs in the late 1980s and a wintering population of 7,000 birds. The BBS index suggests the breeding population declined a little from 1994 improved again and then declined more from 2010 to 2019 ending up 40% down since 1994. The incidence of Coot is low meaning the index sample size is small therefore less reliance can be placed on this result. APEP4 put the adjusted population in 2016 at 400 pairs which is likely to be an underestimate. The five year mean wintering population to 2018/19 from WeBS Online is 2,600. Perhaps not all sites are counted but this suggests a fall in the wintering population too. Another resident waterbird with a declining population. Perhaps our waterways are not as clean as we would hope?
(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included September 2022)