A swimming waterbird of lakes and ponds with a conspicuous white forehead.
Adults have a black body with a white bill and forehead.
Common coots sometimes weave discarded packaging into canal nests. Nests collected in Amsterdam contained newer material over older packaging. Persistent plastics, unlike more rapidly decaying plants, provided clues to repeated use and rebuilding of nest sites.
A 2025 paper examined nests collected in September 2021 after breeding had ended, separating natural and artificial materials. One nest beneath a dock in the Rokin area contained 635 artificial items, including 32 food packages with expiry markings. The older material included packaging dated to the early 1990s.
Another nest contained packaging marked with 2019 expiry dates beneath a layer incorporating disposable masks. Historical street images also showed a new layer being added to the nest at that location. Adding material to an older foundation appears to form part of urban coots’ nesting behaviour when durable artificial materials are available.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Reducing packaging, masks and other litter in urban waters is a conservation concern for coots using these habitats. In Leiden, the Netherlands, De Grachtwacht has cleaned canals since 2018. Naturalis reported in 2023 that volunteers collect litter by canoe each week and record its sources. Alongside clean-ups, the initiative worked to reduce incoming waste, including efforts to replace disposable event cups with returnable ones.