Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks nest again in Ohio, producing scads of chicks

 

This rather innocuous-looking place was our destination last Sunday, October 20, 2024, and it's a spot I had been hoping to visit for a few months. Better late than never, and in this case, late was probably better.

Shauna and I packed the gear and drove the hour and a half to Ohio State University's sprawling Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center campus near Wooster, in Wayne County, Ohio. The locale in the photo is perhaps most noteworthy for its string of six little ponds. Parts of two of those are visible in the photo. This is where the latest crop of nesting Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) has been hanging out.

This tropical duck was first found nesting in Ohio just a few miles from this spot, in 2022. I wrote about that RIGHT HERE.

While I knew finding and seeing the large "tree ducks" would not be difficult, in this case it was ridiculously easy. We pulled into the site, and before even getting out of the vehicle I heard the squeaky peeping whistles of the whistling-ducks. A glance in the direction of the pond revealed the extended head of an adult, peeking up and over the embankment. It didn't long to walk into a good position and start getting shots of the beautiful fowl. Here, two adults with pink bills bookend three dusky-billed juveniles.

But wait! There were more! It didn't take long to realize that the pack had expanded from the eBird reports I had recently seen, which listed 10 juveniles and two adults. In total, we saw 19 juveniles and six adults. We arrived right around sunrise, and the ducks were still resting on the banks of one of the small ponds, in three discrete pods, each with two adults. It would appear that three pairs of whistling-ducks bred somewhere locally, and then merged the troops here after the young became flighted. As we were leaving, Jethro Raber, an ace local birder who has been keeping tabs on the ducks, told us that the assemblage of this big pack was a recent event, just a day or two prior to our visit if I recall correctly.

As always, you can click the image to enlarge and if you do with the photo above, you'll see the frosty rime on the grass. It was in the low 30's F the prior night, and nighttime temps have been getting consistently frosty. I suspect these Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks will not hang around much longer.

As the sun warmed the earth, and the birds, they began foraging and moving around. We saw them skimming lesser duckweed (Lemna minor) from the pond's surface and plucking at other plants. While they didn't venture far, some short flights were made, and we saw all 25 birds flying and flying well. The juveniles will soon be ready for their southward journey, if they aren't already. A juvenile stretches its long wings in the image above, and shares space with four other young birds. An adult is to the far right.

An adult whistling-duck strikes a pose. It is atop a long linear pile of who knows what. I suspect the material is a mixture of manure and other offal of farming operations, but I really have no idea. There was something in there that pleased the ducks, though, and they avidly rooted about in the stuff. Perhaps corn kernels or other edible plant matter.

Once the ducks became active, they wasted little time in heading to these piles and remained on and around them the rest of the time that we were there. I wonder if this stuff, whatever it may be (and if you know, please leave a comment) is what made them fixate on this particular site.

A juvenile strikes a subservient posture before an adult. It was great fun observing the interactions and dynamics of these charismatic birds. While highly social, there are pecking orders and squabbles to establish them. Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks can be incredibly tame, and these birds weren't exactly shrinking violets. Nonetheless, we maintained a good distance from them which allows for better opportunities to observe natural interactions while avoiding the possibility of spooking/flushing the birds. There's no reason to do that, in this situation especially.

It seems that we are seeing the genesis of a breeding population of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks develop before our eyes. From one pair three years ago, that produced (if memory serves) four surviving chicks, to the current crop of three apparent broods and 19 chicks. All of the last three year's nestings were within a few miles of each other. It'll be interesting to see if and how the Wayne County population continues its expansion, and if and where other future breeding records occur. I don't know offhand the exact number of Black-bellied Whistling-Duck records in Ohio, but since the first report in 2004, there have probably been a few dozen. It seems likely that other vagrant (if we can still call them that) whistling-ducks will remain to breed elsewhere in the state.