Black Bellied Whistling Ducks - A Spring Treat in Texas

You got to love ‘em- Black Bellied Whistling Ducks; with legs and a bill as pink as any Barbie paraphernalia, extra long legs too, more befitting a goose than a duck, a life long fidelity to their mates, also more like geese or swans, plus a fondness for standing about in trees and a willingness to stare you down rather than instantly fly away.  Charming.  I am delighted to see them back.

Indeed, they have black bellies, and they “whistle” as they fly, ergo the name.  Back in the day they were often called Whistling Tree Ducks, for they do love to stand about in trees, and will nest in trees, so I am not sure why they dropped that part of their name. Too much of a mouthful perhaps when added to the BB part.

They were the very first ducks I saw pass over my backyard when I had just moved here, and I amazed myself by having a flash that they were tree ducks and then finding out I was right.  I had dredged up their image from years ago when I worked at Sea World and they were part of the grand avian collection they had there.  Speak about a buried memory popping up when you need it. 

Looking at their distribution map I can see I am lucky to be here, for otherwise trying to see them would involve a trip over the border to Mexico or Central America.  But they do wander up to TX in late winter and spend the spring and summer here.  As a species, they aren’t really considered migratory, they are happy to stay put year round in Mexico, but some have a wander lust that have led them over the border to come here for the summer.  Could it be even hotter in Mexico?  Perhaps, or perhaps they too are tired of the drug violence.  

When I saw them pass overhead, it was an early misty morning, and I assumed they were headed out for the day, to whatever they considered the best eating-place in town.  As it turns out, it was just the opposite, they were returning home to roost after a long night of gleaning from old grain fields, so although you may come upon them awake by day, loafing about mainly, they do most of their feeding after hours.  All the better to sneak in the farmers fields perhaps.

They lay a passel of precocious ducklings, often having their nest in trees, and the ducklings must take that first scary leap as wood ducks do into the great unknown.  Occasionally females will “dump” their eggs in a communal nest, and I have never learned whether these poor harried surrogate moms who may have 20 or more eggs to brood, manage to raise them all. If they do, they would deserve their own reality show. 

It is getting nice to anticipate who comes when, something that takes a few years living somewhere to get the hang of.  So, the BBWD were on time, the Cedar Waxwings came again in late winter as they have done before, although they will soon head further north, and on the first day of spring, I had my first Black Chinned Hummingbird at the feeder.  I hear the bats are back too, but that is a different story.

Even though the weather may keep throwing winter at you, keep an eye out for those birds; those signs that give you hope that spring is inevitably on its way.  The “konk-ka-ree” of Red Winged Blackbirds, the sounds of Spring Peepers, the fabulous crepuscular dance of the Woodcock, surely they are coming soon to a neighborhood near you.  I have my whistling ducks; you have your peeping amphibians.  Let us all rejoice in a return of life to our own corners of the globe, wherever we are.