Whistling Ducks

My second trip down to Argentina, we shot in a completely different part of the country than we did the first year.  That suited me just fine.  I wanted to see all of Argentina that I could.  I also wanted to shoot as many possible species of ducks as I could.  I knew very little about the migration paths of the birds down there.  I still don't know everything, but I have studied it quite a bit now, and you can definitely see where some species are migrating through in greater numbers than in other areas.

Anyhow, the first morning I shot by myself on a very small pothole.  Didn't see many ducks, due to being right in the middle of a stand of very tall reeds.  The only ducks I saw were either straight overhead, or sailing into my decoys.  I had a great shoot, killed my very first Rosy Billed Pochard.  Actually killed a nice pair of them.  Shot Teal and Pintails and had a really great shoot.  When I left, and met up with the other hunters, I saw that one of the guys had killed a beautiful White Cheeked Whistling Duck.  He had no idea what he had killed, just another duck to him.  I was a little jealous, but, what the heck.  He had killed 8 birds and I had killed 50.

The next morning we hunted on a private gunning club.  Somehow Jorge had membership to the place, or at least permission to use it.  We hunted in pairs that morning and when the hunt was over and we got back to the truck, I saw that the other pair of hunters had killed a Fulvous Whistling Duck.  Again I was a little jealous, but once again I had killed far more birds than the other guys and I had killed a Coscoroba Swan as well, so I couldn't be too disappointed.

The following morning we boated out to blinds well offshore on a big lake.  For a while it looked like a bust. Very few ducks were flying, but we could hear some shooting in the distance.  That was the only time I ever knew of any other hunters within miles of our party.  There were hundreds of Black Necked Swans on the lake, and eventually one ventured close enough for me to drop him.  Drop him I did!  Right in the boat we had tied to the back of the blind.

As the morning went on some ducks began moving around and our shooting picked up.  Jorge had promised me that we would see a lot of whistling ducks on this lake.  I didn't understand why - there certainly weren't any trees near the lake.  But he was right.  I saw several White Cheeked Whistling Ducks and finally got a few of them moving near us and I killed a half dozen or so.  They are truly beautiful.  I'd give anything to have one mounted.

Well, we were watching opposite directions, and without any warning Dave started shooting.  I looked up and saw a small flock of Fulvous Whistiling Ducks passing high on his end of the blind.  He killed one on his last shot.  I was crushed.  Travel halfway around the world and missed out on the opportunity.  Whatever, I was stacking up the birds, so I wasn't going home too disappointed.  About then, Jorge motioned to me that a duck was coming over real high and he wanted me to try the shot.  I led the bird about 10 yards and folded it up.  It fell probably 75 yards in behind the blind.  I wanted to go look for it immediately, didn't want it lost in the reeds, but Jorge said we would get it on the way out.

Finished up our shoot, gathered the decoys and headed in.  Sure enough, in a patch of open water back behind our blind we found that high duck I had killed.  My first Fulvous Whistling Duck.  I was good to go after that.

I have since killed a bunch of both the Whistling Duck species, but will always remember my first one of each.