In an “open letter” to the duck, an Audubon.org editor told the Mandarin duck point blank that he wasn’t “that special.”

Because the duck is not believed to have reached the city naturally, birders can’t add him on their “life list,” a record of wild birds that an individual has seen, said Matthew Rymkiewicz, another local enthusiast. He worries about the behavior of the duck’s fans. “It’s a wild animal,” he said. “So respect it and have boundaries.”

When my editors assigned a story about the duck a month ago, his origin was a mystery, and it still is. Mandarin ducks are native to East Asia, not North America, so experts concluded that the duck was likely an abandoned or escaped pet.

While other publications had noted his incongruous presence in Central Park, attention from The Times pushed the bird into superstardom.

Many birders online took issue with the article’s description of a fellow birder, David Barrett, who used a soft pretzel to try to coax the Mandarin to the shore and then, when that failed, chased him from one end of the pond with some convincing quacks.

Mr. Sime said that behavior made birders cringe because it went against a widely accepted birder ethical code.

Mr. Barrett, the creator and manager of the Twitter account Manhattan Bird Alert, can be fairly described as the duck’s kingmaker. He said his strategies for bringing the duck closer to shore were exceptions, and he has subsequently promoted healthy duck-watching behavior. (But, he added, it’s not as if he pioneered the idea of feeding bread to ducks.)