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White-faced Whistling Duck | Dendrocygna viduata
Witwangfluiteend | Suirirí Cariblanco
The White-faced Whistling Duck is a whistling duck of South America and sub-Saharan Africa, with a white face set against a black hindcrown and neck. Within the region it is tied to Trinidad, where small groups live in marshes and rice fields; elsewhere in the region it is a rare vagrant. Like all whistling ducks it is noisy and often active at night.
Voice
A clear, whistled three-note swee-swee-sweeoo, given in flight and on the ground, often at night. Flocks call a great deal together.
Recording: Romuald Mikusek — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
38–48 cm, with the long neck, long legs and upright stance of the whistling ducks. Forehead, face and throat are white, hindcrown and hindneck black. Lower neck and breast are warm chestnut, the flanks finely barred black and white, belly and undertail black. The back is brown with pale feather edges. The bill is blackish-grey and the legs bluish-grey. In flight the wings are uniformly dark, with no white wing stripe. The sexes are alike; juveniles have a greyish-brown rather than white face and are duller overall.
Confusion species
Black-bellied Whistling Duck Dendrocygna autumnalis has a red bill, grey face and a broad white wing stripe. Fulvous Whistling Duck Dendrocygna bicolor is ochre-brown, without a white face or black belly, and has creamy flank stripes. West Indian Whistling Duck Dendrocygna arborea has white flanks spotted black and no white face. Dark-faced juvenile White-faced are identified by the barred flanks and black belly.
Habitat
Freshwater marshes, flooded grassland, rice fields and ponds with shallow margins. It feeds mainly in shallow water on seeds, aquatic plants and small invertebrates, mostly at dusk and at night, and rests by day in groups on banks and exposed mud.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Trinidad, where the species occurs in small numbers in the marshes and rice fields of the west and the lowlands; numbers fluctuate. Elsewhere in the region a rare vagrant, with records from Aruba, Curaçao, Guadeloupe, the US Virgin Islands and Cuba, among others. Outside the region in tropical South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Trinidad best at freshwater marshes and rice fields in the lowlands, often among other whistling ducks. At dusk the whistled calls of passing flocks give the species away.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. Within the region the Trinidad population is small and depends on freshwater marshes and rice fields, which are under pressure from drainage and development. The species is hunted.
Scientific name
Dendrocygna viduata | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Anas viduata; 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. viduata is Latin for 'widowed, in mourning' — for the white face and black hindneck, reminiscent of mourning dress. The specimen the first description was based on came from Cartagena, Colombia.