Black-Bellied Whistling Duck, Massachusetts, July 2012

Late on July 3rd a post came across the MA listserve that a Black-Bellied Whistling Duck was being seen at Great Meadows NWR in Concord, MA.  I couldn’t quite get there before dark that evening, so I decided to go to Great Meadows at dawn the next morning – seemed like a good way to start the 4th.  But although I arrived at 5:15 and stayed till 10, there was no whistling duck to be seen. 

Was this going to be yet another 1-day wonder for this species?  There have been a number of recent examples where whistling ducks have shown up in the northeast, but in most every case they were gone by the next day.  In each of these cases these were small flocks of birds – in fact the same flock appeared in different locations several times.  On the other hand, I and other birders there that day discussed a number of examples where a single Black-Bellied Whistling Duck had shown up as a vagrant and had stuck around in that location for quite a while.  For instance my DE sighting was of a bird that spent many months in one freshwater lake.

So I wasn’t too surprised when 2 weeks later another post came across that the Whistling Duck was once again back at Great Meadows.  Since the e-mail came across virtually real time (thanks to the marvels of smartphones!), and I noticed the e-mail quickly, I was able to drop everything and get to Great Meadows less than 2 hours after the initial sighting.  As I arrived along the main dike I saw several birders in the distance standing around and chatting quietly – didn’t look too positive I’m afraid.  When I got up to them and asked if the bird had been seen recently, they pointed to the other side of the dike.  There was the Whistling Duck sitting on the bank at the water’s edge just 15 feet away!  As is typically the case for these birds, it was very tame and seemingly unphased by the group of birders standing nearby.  The only time it appeared to be unhappy about its surroundings was when a small jet from Hanscom flew low overhead – the duck gave its interesting call in response to the jet noise. 

Although I didn’t bring my camera with me, I was able to get a couple passable phonescoped pictures of the Whistling Duck under some harsh lighting conditions (bird was sitting in the shade with sunlit water in the background).  My statebird map for Black-Bellied Whistling Duck is also inserted below – MA is now my 5th state for this species.