He’s so cute that I had to look up different kinds of waterfowl to make sure this wasn’t a duck or a grebe.

In May the babies wouldn’t drift more than a foot away from the parents.  This juvenile, though, was pretty confident and floated in the same general area as the parent but not right next to the parent.

By now all those juveniles probably look just like the parents.

This week is the Great Salt Lake Festival.  Friday morning Jon and I got up at 3:45 am to make a 5:30 am birding event at Kaysville Pond.  It was dark when we left the house.  But it was all worth it because I saw my first baby coot!

Baby coots are so ugly they’re almost cute.

I feel really lucky to have seen a coot.  Tiffany mentioned that she’s only seen baby coots while kayaking because they usually stay so deep in the bull rushes.  I saw two different babies.

It’s especially funny because this is a tiny stretch of water next to the highway.  It’s small and in a very busy area.  Yet, it held coots, grackles, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, White Pelicans, Canada Geese, Mallards and a Spotted Sandpiper.

Not bad for a pond designed to catch excess runoff from the highway.