Southern Pochard

Description: The male's head, neck, and almost entire underparts blackish, becoming maroon-brown on face and upper neck and rich chestnut on flanks. The upperparts and upperwing is very dark brown, with a broad white band along almost full length of primaries and secondaries. The outer primaries and tips of primaries and secondaries are brown. The underwing is dusky, with the underside of flight feathers paler. Vocalization is a nasal, whirring "perrr-perrr-prerrr" in flight. A female's general coloration resembles that of male, but browner and not so dark. The underparts are dark buff-brown, weakly mottled and barred whitish. She has a striking head pattern, with whitish of throat extending up sides of head behind ear coverts in diffuse crescent and with whitish patches around bill-base. The wing is the same as the male. Vocalization is a low, hissing, vibrant "quark."


Breeding: The South American race of the southern pochard is now extremely rare and poorly documented in recent history. Their pair-bond is temporary and forms just prior to breeding season. Breeding commences towards the end of the local wet season when water levels are high. They prefer relatively large and deep freshwater and brackish-water lakes, usually where there is an abundance of reeds and emergent vegetation. They nest on the ground by the waterside usually hidden among vegetation and occasionally using holes and old nests of other birds. They can lay between 5 to 9 creamy white eggs.

Migrating and Wintering: The nominate subspecies (N. e. erythrophthalma) is endemic to South America, and widely distributed from Colombia and Venezuela to Peru, northern Argentina and southeastern Brazil, but very local and scarce. In recent years, the species has been reported most frequently in eastern Brazil (Scott and Carbonell, 1986).

Population: Estimated to have between 25,000-50,000 individuals (Rose and Scott, 1994).

Food habits: They feed mostly in the early morning and evening chiefly by diving and up-ending.