Subject: Re: Black Ducks at Nisqually
Date: Nov 28 09:07:16 1994
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


>I took my family down to the Nisqually delta today looking for the Black Duck
>that has been seen there. I missed it however it was seen this AM. I had a
>conversation with one of the vollunteers? who was running the learning
>center. He said that the hunters were taking a few "Black Ducks". He saw
>two, but could not absolutely verify ident.
>How often do BD's frequent the area? In my books the range shown is far, far
>away. Any comments
>
>Fred Rutan
>Port Orchard, WA
>FRUTAN at AOL.com

As you saw from your field guides, Fred, American Black Ducks occur in
eastern North America. There is a very small introduced population centered
around the Everett sewage ponds that has remained for several decades now,
and there either is or was a population near Vancouver, BC. There are also
what are probably bona fide records of vagrant individuals from the East,
birds seen in eastern WA at the right season some years ago (I saw one at
Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in fall 1968 that I always assumed was a
wild bird). The species has declined in the East, so I suppose records of
vagrants out here should be increasingly less likely. Where the Nisqually
bird came from no one knows. If there is more than one there, that will
need to be thoroughly documented. I doubt very much if hunters are taking a
"few" Black Ducks at Nisqually. Also, occasional Mallard x Black Duck
hybrids are seen where the small Black Duck populations exist, causing some
confusion, but hybridization (which is not rare in the East) seems to be
rare here. Black Ducks apparently have some scruples....unlike Mallards.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416