Coots are common from fall through spring on lakes just outside of the park, such as Laurel Lake (Townsend, Tennessee) and Lake Junaluska (North Carolina), but they remain accidental in the park due to the small amount of open standing water within the boundary.

Feather mites of the genera Grallobia and Grallolichus (Philopteridae; det. B. M. O?Connor) were found in a single coot specimen collected along the Gatlinburg River Trail in February of 2006.

The lice Pseudomenopon pilosum (Scopoli) (Menoponidae) and Fulicoffula longipilla (Kellogg) (Philopteridae) were collected off of the same bird (Reeves et al. 2007).

Most park records are from mid-October to early November (1935, 1950, 1956, 1961, and 1987) when sudden turns in the weather from mild to wintry apparently killed or weakened individuals or flocks moving south across the mountains (Stupka 1963). This species probably migrates over the park regularly without being detected. Recent records are of a fall bird on a pond at Tremont (1981), a bird in June 1984 in Cades Cove, and a dead bird on the Gatlinburg River Trail in February of 2006. A loan coot was observed in mid-May, 1998, on Fontana Lake near the dam and it is probable that this species is present on the reservoirs along the park boundary more often than reports indicate.

References:

Gough, G. A., Sauer, J. R., Iliff, M. Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter. 1998. Version 97.1. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD.

Reeves, W. K., L. A. Durden, C. M. Ritzi, K. R. Beckham, P. E. Super, and B. M. O?Connor. 2007. Ectoparasites and other ectosymbiotic arthropods of vertebrates in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, USA. Zootaxa.

Stupka, A. 1963. Notes on the Birds of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.