Ecotourism and outdoor recreation occur in wetlands worldwide, including sea coasts and inlands, and many species of waterfowl are faced with increasing disturbance from recreational activities of human beings. Common coots (Fulica atra) are widely distributed throughout the Old World and Australia, and breed in swamps in most of northern China. This species is indicative of wetland quality because it requires large areas of open water and good cover for nesting habitat, and common coot populations decline when habitat quality is degraded. Therefore, it is important to determine the response of common coots to recreational disturbance. In this study, the diurnal activities of breeding common coots were observed in recreational and control areas in the Anbang River Nature Reserve in Heilongjiang Province from 2006 to 2007. The results indicated that:(1) during the pre-laying period, common coots in the recreational area exhibited escape behavior significantly more often than that did those in the control area (F_1,18=62.364, P<0.01); (2) the behavioral responses of breeding common coots during the incubation period were more intense than during the pre-laying period. Firstly common coots exhibited escape behavior more often in the recreational area (male:F_1,8=40.653, P<0.01;female F_1,8=32.028, P<0.01); secondly the female common coots reduced their incubation time (F_1,8=13.521, P<0.01) and continuous periods of incubation were shorter, whereas forging time decreased for male common coots and the peak time increased in recreational area relative to that observed in the control area. Our results indicated that recreational activities disrupted behavioral continuity of breeding common coots. The breeding behavior of female and male common coots and their response to human disturbance differed. Based on the responses of common coots to recreational activities, several alternatives were proposed, including increasing the amount of wetland plant cover between the human footpaths and common coot territories, and growing wetland plants adjacent to the swamp shore and near coot nests to improve habitat quality, provide escape cover, and alleviate direct disturbance by human.