All species › Waterfowl › Ducks, swans and geese › Fulvous Whistling Duck
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › Fowl Galloanserae
Fulvous Whistling Duck | Dendrocygna bicolor
Rosse fluiteend | Suirirí bicolor
The Fulvous Whistling Duck is a warm ochre-brown whistling duck found in the tropics of four continents. In the guide area it is more local than the Black-bellied Whistling Duck and closely tied to shallow, vegetated fresh water, especially rice fields. Its numbers fluctuate with rainfall and rice growing.
Voice
A clear, whistled, two-syllable kee-wee-oo, often in flight and also at night. Flocks give a continuous whistling.
Recording: José María Loaiza B. — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
45–53 cm, with a long neck and long legs. The head, neck and underparts are warm ochre-brown, the crown and a line down the hindneck darker brown. The neck is finely streaked white. The back is dark brown with broad rufous feather fringes. A row of creamy white, elongated feathers runs along the flanks. The bill and legs are dark bluish grey. In flight the wings are uniformly dark, and a white U on the uppertail coverts stands out against the black tail. The sexes are alike; juveniles are duller, with less striking flank stripes.
Confusion species
Black-bellied Whistling Duck Dendrocygna autumnalis has a red bill, pink legs, a black belly and a broad white wing band; even juveniles, with a grey bill, already show the wing band. Females of dabbling ducks such as Cinnamon Teal Spatula cyanoptera have a shorter neck and legs, mottled plumage and a blue forewing.
Habitat
Rice fields, freshwater marshes, flooded grassland and savanna, and shallow ponds and lagoons with abundant floating plants; mainly in the lowlands, locally up to the central plateau of Mexico. It feeds in shallow water, often swimming and dabbling or diving, on seeds of grasses and aquatic plants. The nest is placed in dense marsh vegetation or in a rice field.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
On the Pacific side of Mexico from Sonora and Sinaloa south to Chiapas, on the Gulf side from Tamaulipas through Veracruz to Tabasco, and locally inland in Jalisco, Michoacán and the central states. Further scattered and local in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, mainly in rice-growing areas. In northern Mexico largely a summer visitor; elsewhere flocks wander as wetlands fill and dry out. Outside the guide area in the southern United States, South America, the West Indies, sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar and southern Asia.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Rice fields and flooded pastures are the best places, for example in Guanacaste in Costa Rica and in Chiriquí and Coclé in Panama, often among Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. At dusk, flocks flying over can be recognised by their call.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. In the guide area the species benefits from rice growing, but pesticides and changes in cultivation affect numbers; it is also hunted.
Scientific name
Dendrocygna bicolor | (Vieillot, 1816)
Vieillot described the species in 1816 as Anas bicolor; 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. bicolor is Latin for 'two-coloured', for the contrast between the rufous body and the dark back. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.