The Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Yellow-crested Night Herons in our yard have fledged; spring migration has come and gone with many rare and familiar migrants reported on NARBA.org, TEXBIRD and the North American Birding Forum. Summer has arrived in South Texas.
Each year we watch our bird condo (a dead palm tree with holes for nesting birds) with trepidation and excitement mixed into a big ball of tumultuous expectation. The Dendrocygna Autumnalis, Black-belled Whistling Ducks sometimes mate for life and have nested in our palm for several years.
We adore them, but the problem we have is that our yard is completely fenced in by brick, so are always concerned when the ducks fledge.
We ask ourselves how will the parent ducks get the ducklings out of our yard? Where will they go in the middle of a large city? And more troubling still, will the ducklings survive in our yard with our two dogs?
Whistling Ducks, formerly known as Tree Ducks are arboreal and they seem to particularly like the top most holes of our bird condo — likely in an attempt to get as far as possible from our dogs. Incubation last about 30 days and many females are known to “dump” eggs in already inhabited nests. This often means that the downies will fledge at different times, usually anywhere from 53 – 63 days, so it isn’t like we can watch for one fledge and then relax until the next spring.
Every spring once the mature birds start hanging around our tree, we begin our anxious vigil. I say anxious, but it is an anxiety tinged with awe, for in my wildest dreams I imagine actually being present when the parents begin pushing those little guys out of the nest and it starts to literally rain baby ducks.
Newly fledged whistling/arboreal ducks have soft bones which allow them to hit the ground without injury and I’ve been told that they instinctively hustle under the nearest bush or shrub and peep around until all brood have excited the nest and Mom and Dad come out to collect them and usher them off to the nearest watering hole — in the city(?) another source of anxiety.
I’ll be honest, some years have been not good, some fledges have gone unobserved, and other years have been great. This year was a good one. My husband noticed the ducks and downies in the yard at around lunch time on May 31st, and immediately corralled the dogs into the dog run, although — in my dogs defense — my oldest dog, a boxer named Cindar was just laying in the yard very near the ducks watching them waddle by. We snapped a few pictures and then left them alone hoping that they would find the one egress from our house: under the driveway gate.
As with everything else with these ducks, this is both a blessing and a curse, they can get out, but the only way out is directly onto a main and very busy city street.
I am most relieved to report that this year, by late afternoon the parents and downies were all gone, may St. Francis keep watch over them all.
And let us all be comforted by the majesty of nature in the face of extreme diversity.
Birding Mecca 