Date: 4/16/25 7:00 am From: Harry LeGrand (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: First report/record of Fulvous Whistling-Duck in NC since 2001
Folks,
On April 14 (2025), Doug Racine, who visits the North River Wetlands Preserve in Carteret County almost weekly, posted three photographs of a Fulvous Whistling-Duck taking flight from a pond there. He posted these on the Carolina Bird Club Photo Gallery:
There is no eBird report for this very important record, but there are comments in the NC Rare Bird Alert on the GroupMe app. Thankfully, photos on the CBC website are permanently documented. I now write the "Briefs for the Files" for *The Chat*, and I will include this record there for documentation as well. This will later go onto the *Birds of North Carolina* website, which says the last NC record based on The Chat database was on January 1, 2001.
Note that this species was an almost annual fall and early winter visitor back in the 1960s and 1970s (see the NC website) along the coast, and ranged sparingly inland into the inner Coastal Plain and twice in the eastern Piedmont. I have been fortunate to be birding NC back then, and I have seen them maybe 5-6 times, including seeing the amazing flock of 11 at the (former) Greenview Farm south of Raleigh, back in 1975. In fact, the peak NC counts were 61 in 1989, and 55 in 1960, indicating that it at times could be found in some numbers. The range in the USA has been strongly declining, and it is now difficult to find in Florida, being found mainly now from coastal Louisiana into coastal Texas, and southward.
I would really doubt this is an escaped bird, as it is seen taking flight and as there are no nearby aviaries. Plus, no other strange out-of-range waterfowl have been reported lately in the region. This species is not a review one for NC, but as there have been no reports in the state in 24 years, it is up to the NC Bird Records Committee chair to decide if a review is warranted. I feel sure that most Carolina birders have never seen a Fulvous Whistling-Duck in NC or perhaps in SC as well, and thus the great interest in relocating these birds.
