Scott,
Thanks for providing this information. Another strike against these birds being
wild is the timing of their appearance. All vagrant records in Tennessee have
occurred from April to August, with the vast majority in May & June.
True, they have wintered some years in Shelby County, but that was in
years following breeding there.
Rick Knight
Johnson City, TN
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Somershoe
To: Tennessee Bird List
Sent: 2/9/2016 10:59:54 PM
Subject: [TN-Bird] Re: new hotspot for Sevier County Black-bellied Whistling
Ducks
Just thought I'd throw out here (and not sure why this hasn't been posted yet)
that most, if not all, of these Black-bellied Whistling Ducks are banded with
color zip ties, meaning they are almost certainly from a waterfowl collection
and are released/escaped. None of the birds have USGS metal bands, which is
what state and federal agencies use for banding wild birds (and states in the
SE are banding them, by the way). This zip tie marking is typical of waterfowl
collectors.Â
A little google effort and I found info on how states are banding whistlers.
States are putting on USGS metal bands on one leg and a color band with a 3
letter/number combo on the other leg, not zip ties.
So not to be a buzz kill, but these birds are probably not countable (if that
is of concern to you). I think more info will be forthcoming on the banding
efforts, but if you wanted to chase these for a tick......I'd just wait until
birds return to the Pits this spring and get a pile of other goodies in the MS
River corridor!
Don't kill the messenger, just sharing pertinent info. Â :)
Cheers,
Scott Somershoe
Littleton CO
On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 4:24 PM, Carole Gobert <cpgobert@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A new hotspot has been created to accommodate the many checklists being sent in
by people going to see the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks found two days ago in
Sevier County. I have made this a stakeout hotspot. It is called stakeout
Black-bellied Whistling Duck (2016). Please use the hotspot when entering a
checklist from this location whether or not you actually find the ducks. The
great advantage to having hotspots is to allow easy exploration of the data for
the site. You will still be able to look at bar charts, etc. showing just
your own observations there but you (and others) will also be able to see the
larger picture.
If you have already entered a checklist at the location and wish to have it
included in the hotspot, simply open your checklist and click on "Edit
Location" at the top right. Then choose Nearby Location to locate the hotspot
which will show on the map as a large red radio button. Click on the red
button and the name will pop up. click on Continue once you have found the
right hotspot and the location of your checklist will be changed to the hotspot.
Thank you for your cooperation and good birding! I hope lots of you get to
see these rare visitors.
Carole Gobert
eBird Hotspot Administrator for Tennessee
Â
