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Black-bellied Whistling Duck | Dendrocygna autumnalis
Zwartbuikfluiteend | Suirirí piquirrojo
The Black-bellied Whistling Duck is the most colourful whistling duck in the region: chestnut with a black belly, a grey face and a bright red bill. It is common on the ABC islands, Trinidad and Barbados, and in recent decades it has spread through much of the West Indies. It readily perches in trees and on posts, and flocks fly out whistling to their feeding grounds in the evening.
Voice
A high, whistled pee-chee-chee-nee of four or five notes, often in flight and also at night. Flocks keep up a continuous whistling.
Recording: Peter Mundale — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
47–56 cm, long-legged and long-necked. Crown, hindneck, breast and back are warm chestnut, the face and upper neck grey with a narrow white eye-ring. Belly, flanks and tail are black. The bill is bright pinkish-red and the legs pink. In flight a broad white band across the upperwing stands out sharply against the black flight feathers. The sexes are alike. Juveniles have a grey bill and a dull, grey-mottled belly instead of a black one.
Confusion species
No other whistling duck in the region has a red bill and white wing band. West Indian Whistling Duck Dendrocygna arborea is larger, with a black bill, white flanks spotted black and plain dark wings. Fulvous Whistling Duck Dendrocygna bicolor is ochre-brown with a dark bill and no white in the wing. Juvenile Black-bellied have grey bills but already show the white wing band.
Habitat
Freshwater ponds and marshes, sewage ponds, salt pans and lagoons with some vegetation, mangroves, rice fields and other damp farmland. It feeds mainly at dusk and at night on seeds, grasses and aquatic plants, also in fields, and rests by day on banks, in trees and on posts. It nests in tree cavities and nest boxes, sometimes on the ground in dense cover.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Numerous on Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, on Trinidad and on Barbados. Now locally established or regular in the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, on Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, Grenada and Guadeloupe; irregular elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles and in the Virgin Islands. On several islands the species has newly appeared or increased in recent decades. Outside the region from the southern United States through Mexico and Central America to northern Argentina.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire at freshwater pools and sewage ponds, where flocks rest on the banks by day; on Trinidad and Barbados at ponds and marshes. At dusk the flocks pass over whistling.
Conservation status
Not threatened. In the region the species is increasing and spreading. It is hunted on some islands; wetland loss affects it too, though it adapts well to artificial waters.
Scientific name
Dendrocygna autumnalis | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Anas autumnalis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Dendrocygna was introduced in 1837 by Swainson. Dendrocygna comes from the Greek dendron, 'tree', and the Latin cygnus, 'swan' — 'tree swan', because some whistling ducks perch or nest in trees. autumnalis is Latin for 'autumnal', after the orange, yellow and brown tones of the plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from America (not specified).