Coot parade

You can set your clock by them. Every afternoon, about 30 minutes before dark, they parade in single or double file out from the shallows to an open flat far away from the bank. Next morning, not long after daylight, they begin the parade back to the shallows and the bank to feed or do whatever ducks do all day.

Welcome to the Lake D’Arbonne Coot Parade. Now, it isn’t as popular as the Watermelon Parade or the Christmas Parade, but it’s a regular, at least out from my house.  Coots are officially named “poule d’eau”, or pool-doo for those lacking in French spelling and enunciation skills. In other areas, they are called mud hen, water hen, marsh hen, moor-head or water chickens. While those names sound a little better, they still don’t make coots taste any better in a gumbo. Trust me. If somebody offers you a foam bowl full of coot gumbo, pour it out and eat the bowl.

Each fall, hundreds of coots show up and make themselves at home on D’Arbonne. They chatter a little bit, but otherwise appear harmless. They nibble away at all the floating duck weed, or coot weed as it may be. It would help if they were nice to look at like the mallards or woodies, but they aren’t. But at least they don’t get up on the boat dock or deck and pretend like it’s an outhouse like the mallards.

Life on the lake. Every day’s an adventure. And the coot parade is just one of them.