English: The lobed feet of the coot The coot, Fulica atra, is a distinctive water bird which nevertheless is often confused with the moorhen or even a duck. Unlike those birds it sports a white frontal shield above its white beak (giving rise to the adage 'bald as a coot'), its call is an unmistakeable metallic clink, and it possesses these remarkable feet, not webbed but fissipalmate, meaning they are furnished with lobes of skin which help it to swim, to take off from the water and also to walk across weedy or leafy water surfaces and mud. Grebes and phalaropes share this adaptation. There were dozens of coots on the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal on this mid-March afternoon, paired up and getting ready for the nesting season.