Last week I visited Kabini with my friend. While going to Kabini &
returning back, we used to stop at the lake on the way near HD.Kote, which
usually have plenty of bird life, like jacanas, coots, ducks, egrets, herons,
storks and ibis. Also, sometimes, we could see marsh harriers and kites.
This time, while coming back from Kabini, we stopped for some time and
were watching for the bird life. We noticed a coot with 2 chicks foraging near
the banks in between the grass shoots. It looked like the adult coot was
feeding the chicks. The chicks were following the adult wherever it goes. At
one point, the adult coot did some body language by dipping the head under
water, and left the chicks. May be it went in search of food. The chicks
obediently stayed back obeying its parent. The adult came back and again fed
the chicks.
After sometime, we observed that the adult coot started attacking one
of the chicks, repeatedly. It was biting the chick's head, and chasing it away.
It was strange to watch that. Though the adult was attacking the chick, the
chick repeatedly was behind the adult.
May be this is some kind of child favoritism, we thought. Some more
references I could see in Wikipedia are here:
//
Coots can be very brutal to their
own young under pressure such as the lack of food. They will bite young that
are begging for food and repeatedly do this until it stops begging and starves
to death. If the begging continues, they may bite so hard that the chick is
killed.[6]
//
//
At least some coots have
difficulty feeding a large family of hatchlings on the tiny shrimp and insects
that they collect. So after about three days they start attacking their own
chicks when they beg for food. After a short while, these attacks concentrate
on the weaker chicks, who eventually give up begging and die. The coot may
eventually raise only two or three out of nine hatchlings.
//
