Are these ducks?

Had to empty the feeder to fix the funnel and spilled a bunch of corn. Had these start showing up, are these ducks?

We called them Mexican ducks, not sure if that’s right or not.

Yes,

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck then it's a pigeon

Black bellied whistling duck/tree duck

Yep

Thanks. They have shown up a couple different days, this feeder isn't super close to water so I'm a little surprised.

Black bellies are a perching duck. They behave a little different from the normal ducks you see around here.

Weird. They normally appear in May -- migrating up from Brazil. I would have thought they would be gone down south by now.

We never have ducks this early in San Saba county, plus we have almost zero water in the tanks so I have no idea what they are doing here.

M R ducks.

Just a guess, eating corn.

Some don’t migrate much. I know of several groups released by a buddy of mine that he raised. I see them from time to time in the Tim Top area.

Yea they stay year round around Houston, Mexican Whistlers we call them

As already responded, I know them as whistling tree ducks. The whistle is unmistakable when flying into your set, dumber than dumb and they are delicious.

Yea it wasn't in question what they were eating. My statement was directed more at what they were doing in the area in the first place. We usually don't see ducks until December.

Those black belly whistling ducks remind me of geese more than ducks.

I hunt just south of Cherokee and there was a pretty big flock on the pond back in July

The reason is that for these ducks, the southern half of Texas is their spring and summer mating destination area.

to be more clear, ducks and geese both show up in lots of places to eat before migration building up a fat reserve for their long flight. This species of duck is different than most ducks we see in that Texas is part of their Spring/Summer nesting grounds where most ducks we think about like Mallards which nest in the northern states, Canada and Alaska and we see them only in the winter where they are here to escape the cold of the great white north.

It doesn't really surprise me in the least ducks around a feeder where corn has dumped in "large quantities" I have seen mallards other ducks at a feeder, feeding on corn a couple times in the past when corn was stacking up as the deer were not eating it due to lots of acorns.

A couple of years ago we had a pair show up at the yard every evening just about sunset and eat bugs under the lights all night....around sunrise they would fly off. Showed up for weeks....you could easily get within 10'-15' of them.....

L I B M R DUCKS

Very unique duck. As mentioned above, they perch in trees. They have talons on the end of their webbed feet to hold onto tree branches.