Fulvous whistling duck

Sep 30, 2018 Features / Columnists, Interesting Creatures in Guyana

The fulvous whistling duck or fulvous tree duck (Dendrocygna bicolor) is a whistling duck that breeds across the world’s tropical regions in much of Central and South America, the West Indies, the southern US, sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent. It has mainly reddish brown plumage, long legs and a long grey bill, and shows a distinctive white band across its black tail in flight. Like other members of its ancient lineage, it has a whistling call which is given in flight or on the ground. The preferred habitat is shallow lakes, paddy fields or other wetlands with plentiful vegetation.

Fulvous whistling duck

The nest, built from plant material and unlined, is placed among dense vegetation or in a tree hole. The typical clutch is around ten whitish eggs. The breeding adults, which pair for life, take turns to incubate, and the eggs hatch in 24–29 days. The downy grey ducklings leave the nest within a day or so of hatching, but the parents continue to protect them until they fledge around nine weeks later.
The fulvous whistling duck feeds in wetlands by day or night on seeds and other parts of plants. It is sometimes regarded as a pest of rice cultivation, and is also shot for food in parts of its range. Despite hunting, poisoning by pesticides and natural predation by mammals, birds and reptiles, the large numbers and huge range of this duck mean that it is classified as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The fulvous whistling duck is 45–53 cm (18–21 in) long; the male weighs 748–1,050 g (26.4–37.0 oz), and the female averages marginally lighter at 712–1,000 g (25.1–35.3 oz). It is a long-legged duck, mainly golden-brown with a darker back and an obvious blackish line down the back of its neck. It has whitish stripes on its flanks, a long grey bill and grey legs. In flight, the wings are brown above and black below, with no white markings, and a white crescent on the rump contrasts with the black tail. All plumages are fairly similar, but the female is slightly smaller and duller-plumaged than the male. The juvenile has paler under parts, and appears generally duller, especially on the flanks. There is a complete wing moult after breeding, and birds then seek the cover of dense wetland vegetation while they are flightless. Body feathers may be moulted throughout the year, although each feather is replaced only once annually.
These are noisy birds with a clear whistling kee-wee-ooo call given on the ground or in flight. Quarrelling birds also have a harsh repeated kee. In flight, the beating wings produce a dull sound. The calls of males and females show differences in structure and an acoustic analysis on 59 captive birds demonstrated 100 percent accuracy in sexing when compared with molecular methods.
Adult birds in Asia can be confused with the similar lesser whistling duck, although that species is smaller, has a blackish crown and lacks an obvious dark stripe down the back of the neck. Juvenile fulvous whistling ducks are very like young lesser whistling ducks, but the crown colour is still a distinction. Juvenile comb ducks are bulkier than whistling ducks and have a dark cap to the head. In South America and Africa, juvenile white-faced whistling ducks are separable from fulvous by their dark crowns, barred flanks and chestnut breasts.
The fulvous whistling duck feeds in wetlands by day or night, often in mixed flocks with relatives such as white-faced or black-bellied whistling ducks. Its food is generally plant material, including seeds, bulbs, grasses and stems, but females may include animal items such as aquatic worms, molluscs and insects as they prepare for egg-laying, which may then comprise up to 4 percent of their diet. Ducklings may also eat a few insects. Foraging is by picking plant items while walking or swimming, by upending, or occasionally by diving to a depth of up to 1 m (3 ft). Favoured plants include water snowflake, aquatic ragweeds, bourgou millet, shama grass, Cape blue water lily, waxy-leaf nightshade, beakrush, flatsedge and polygonums. Rice is normally a small part of the diet, and a survey in Cuban rice fields found that the plants taken were mainly weeds growing with the crop. However, in a study in Louisiana, 25 percent of the diet of incubating females consisted of the cereal. [Source: Wikipedia]

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