Wandering Waterfowl?

We rarely worry about the origins of the birds we see. Unless, of course, they’re waterfowl. Any duck, goose, or swan even slightly out of range is immediately under a downy cloud of suspicion, and even when a record has been “accepted” by a records committee, there is still that nagging wonder.

Sometimes, though, the question about a bird’s provenance can be answered. A yellow Budgerigar on a Tucson street is probably a refugee from cuttlebone, and the Bosque del Apache Bar-headed Geese likely wandered no farther than the nearest barnyard. And the minor mystery surrounding the Avra Valley Wood Ducks appears to be solved.

Avra Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant is one of my favorite birding sites, just west of town on the other side of the Tucson Mountains. A largely white Wood Duck has been there now for many months, and local birders have idly wondered just how frequent white plumage variants are in wild Wood Ducks. It turns out, not very: but they are a favored “sport” of collectors and breeders of captive waterfowl. And this bird is lacking a hind toe on one foot, a sure sign that her first days were spent in a duck pen. Another “blonde” bird has spent several winters on the Santa Cruz River north of town, and it seems likely that this bird too is an escapee. But the normally plumaged drake accompanying the Avra Valley bird could well be a wild individual with a taste for the exotic. We’ll likely never know, unless he too hauls out of the water to reveal a missing hallux, a band, or a tatoo.