FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Re: Black-bellied Whistling Ducks: update, access information

[Phoebetria@xxxxxxx]

To add some background to Mike Stinson's notes: 

There is currently a "flight" or irruption (dispersal) of Black-bellied 
Whistling-Ducks underway in the East.  Between 23 and 31 May in Georgia, 
observers 
report flocks of between five and twenty-five Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks 
(all apparently wild birds); none have been refound in June, having apparently 
moved on, behavior typical of the species during such flights.  Populations of 
this whistling-duck have been increasingly rapidly in Florida, and it is 
believed that the Georgia birds were from the burgeoning Florida population.  
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck is still considered a vagrant to Georgia, so the 
current influx even three states to our south is rather novel, too. 

There are few confirmed records of Black-bellied Whistling-Duck in the 
mid-Atlantic states, and only one from Virginia: a specimen of an immature male 
shot 
by a hunter in King William County, 7 October 1987.  More recently, George 
Reiger studied two birds in the vicinity of Locustville, Accomack County, on 19 
May 1994, and Les Willis observed a flock of five on 10 August 2002, passing 
northeastward along the Nansemond River at Eclipse, in Suffolk.  Don Schwab has 
also seen a family group in Prince William County, in the 1990s. Also in 
1993, there was a rumor of a flock in the Roanoke area, during a major flight 
of 
the species as far north as Canada, but no specifics have surfaced in 
association with that report.  As far as I can determine, the Chesterfield 
County birds 
are the only ones to have been documented by photograph so far in Virginia.  

For observers unfamiliar with the species from Florida or Texas or points 
south, these whistling-ducks show very high tolerance for areas with human 
activity, nesting in tree cavities on bustling hotel grounds in South Texas, 
for 
instance.  In places where they are not hunted, they can be absurdly tame, with 
a 
flush distance of under 20 feet in some of Texas's state parks.  They have 
adapted readily to borrow pits, ditches, and manmade lakes, where they spend 
much of the day resting, often feeding in the evening.  

Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA







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