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Wild Birds and Avian Influenza in Africa

The White-faced Whistling Duck, Dendrocygna viduata

Other names : White-faced duck, White-faced tree-duck
French name : Dendrocygne veuf

Identification

Size : 43-50 cm. Males slightly smaller than females.
Folded wing : 216-222 mm (male) ; 221-225 (female).
Mean weight : 637 g (m) ; 614 g (f). Mid-sized duck, very easy to identify.
At rest : neck and upper breast chestnut; flanks closely barred whitish and brownish-black; brown back; lower breast, belly, tail and rump black.
Adult : front half of head, chin and throat white; rear half of head, upper hind neck and band across throat (sometimes incomplete) black.
Juvenile : face and front upper neck greyish, hind neck dark brown, otherwise like adult.
In flight : appears very dark with a partially white head. Very gregarious out of breeding season, White-faced Whistling Ducks mainly fly at dusk and are easily detected due to their very frequent whistling noises.

Habitat

Lakes, marshes, flood plains, rice fields, rivers, deltas.

Breeding

White-faced Whistling Ducks mainly breed during the wet season (May to October in West Africa, September to April in Zimbabwe). Nests are well concealed in grass a few metres from water. 4-13 eggs are incubated mostly by the male during 26-28 days.

Status

A resident species widespread over South America and Africa south of the Sahara, including Madagascar and the Comoro islands.
Across most of Africa it is a partial intra-African migrant, also showing nomadic tendencies, moving in relation to water levels and food availability, for example in Western Africa between Sahelian and savannah areas.
It is the most abundant resident duck in Africa, with numbers estimated at between about 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 birds (with 600,000-700,000 in West Africa).

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References

• Brown, L., E. Urban, and K. Newman, The Birds of Africa, Vol. 1. 1982, New York: Academic Press Inc. Ltd. 526
• Madge, S. and H. Burn, Wildfowl, 1988, Bromley: Christopher Helm Ltd, Imperial House. 306

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December 14th, 2009

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