Headless bird in City Park
Photo: Contributed
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A Kelowna guy just recently discovered a sad sight along the coastline in City Park.
Local artist Jaims Cox was walking along the coastline Tuesday at City Park when he stumbled upon the headless body of a bird behind the restrooms.
“Who beheads a mudhen? I was beachcombing and I stumbled upon a dead bird, headless however, can’t inform what kind and it did not have actually webbed feet, black in colour.”
Cox says he was baffled by the discover and chose to attempt and identify what kind of bird it was. He now thinks the bird is an American coot.
According to the BC Breeding Atlas, “the American coot is not especially various as a breeding bird in British Columbia, shown in the reasonably low likelihood of observation.”
Coots, typically called mud hens, breed in hole marshes and sloughs of southern Canada and as far north as Great Slave Lake. Unlike other duck-like birds, the coot does not have actually webbed feet and chooses to swim, dive and feed in open water instead of marsh thickets.
Cox has no concept how the bird lost its head however it is possible the bird encountered a predator in the park.
Whatever took the bird down was not thinking about consuming the bird. Folks in southern Louisiana call it poule d’eau, or “hen of the water,” and the bird is obviously rather yummy when correctly looked after and prepared.