West Indies word origins vs. Black-bellied Whistling (Tree) Duck

The DUCK

Does it lay eggs in trees? Yep! Here they are... apparently they make nests in hollowed out trees. I think we saw these on TV, the ducklings jump out of the nest and bounce(?!). Well, this other species jumps out from 50 feet and bounces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDJw43BJtCE

Trying to find out led me to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-bellied_whistling_duck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River

Behavior and ecology

The black-bellied whistling duck is a common species that is "quite tame, even in the wild". It is highly gregarious, or social, forming large flocks when not breeding, and is largely resident apart from local movements. It usually nests in hollow trees (in South America many times in palm trees). The habitat is quite shallow freshwater ponds, lakes, and marshes, cultivated land or reservoirs with plentiful vegetation, where this duck feeds mainly at night on seeds and other plant food.

Breeding

The black-bellied whistling duck is quite unique among ducks in their strong monogamous pair-bond. Its pairs often stay together for many years, a trait more often associated with geese and swans. Both parents share all tasks associated with the raising of the young, from incubation to the rearing of ducklings. The ducks, primarily cavity nesters, prefer the confines of a hollow tree but will nest on the ground when necessary. They also make use of chimneys, abandoned buildings, or nest boxes, the latter having been increasingly provided to them over recent decades, especially in southeast Texas and Mexico. Ducklings leap from nest cavities within two days of hatching, can feed themselves immediately, and stay with the parents for up to eight weeks.

WEST INDIES

Old 1751 London dude, George Edwards, had a duck, drew it and wrote about it. So the West Indies... the name is always weird. He was told it was from the West Indies. So what's up with that name, is that the old thing where they thought the Americas was Inida? Yeah, related. Nowadays, it just means the Carribean area. Back then, they thought they were sailing to India... and India got it's name from the Indus river...

The English term Indie is derived from the Classical Latin India, a reference to the territories in South Asia adjacent and east to the Indus River. India itself derived successively from Hellenistic Greek India ( Ἰνδία), ancient Greek Indos ( Ἰνδός), Old Persian Hindush (an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire), and ultimately its cognate, the Sanskrit Sindhu, or "river", specifically the Indus River and its well-settled southern basin.^[6][7] The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi (Ἰνδοί), which translates as "The people of the Indus".^[8]

In 1492, Christopher Columbus and his Spanish fleet left Spain seeking a western sea passage to the Eastern world, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade emanating from Hindustan, Indochina, and Insulindia, the regions currently found within the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia, which were first simply referred to by Spanish and Portuguese explorers as the Indias (Indies).

Thinking he had landed on the easternmost part of the Indies in the Eastern world when he came upon the New World, Columbus used the term Indias to refer to the Americas, calling its native people Indios (Indians). To avoid confusion between the known Indies of the Eastern Hemisphere and the newly discovered Indies of the Western Hemisphere, the Spanish named the territories in the East Indias Orientales (East Indies) and the territories in the West Indias Occidentales (West Indies). Originally, the term West Indies applied to all of the Americas.