Wandering Whistling-Duck

Wandering Whistling-Duck Dendrocygna arcuata, photographs  were taken at the Hunter Wetlands Centre, Shortland, N.S.W.  My  Birds of Australia book tells me that they have a distinctive, high-pitched twittering whistle.

With lens focal length as far as it would go at 72 mm, and me in a hide, you would think they were looking straight at me.  A rather comical experience getting into that hide too, at the end of a long wooden walkway with hessian along the sides, creating a tunnel-like effect,  so the birds wouldn't see you entering.  However as I started on that walkway, an ibis was already in there, and it decided to make a run for it, down to the hide ahead of me.

I decided to continue at a slow pace so as not to panic the ibis, and when I came to the entrance of the hide I proceeded to walk to the right of the bench next the viewing slot, beckoning and ushering the ibis in a calm voice, to continue around to the left.  Something like 'you go that way, and I'll go this'.    As it stepped tentatively further to the left to get away, I slow-shuffled further to the right, until it worked out that it actually now had a good escape route to re-enter a freedom opportunity, back up 'the tunnel'.  He then kind of made a fast trotting road-runner style, exit.  It left me to cool down after quite some time walking in the heat on a 35 deg. celcius day, have a bite to eat and some water, ready then to start photographing the ducks out there.

They were way out in the distance unfortunately, and I didn't really expect to get as good as I got with my camera.

An informative fact sheet is linked here, on the Wandering Whistling-Duck from the Birds in Backyards website.

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