Mystery Bird: Blue-winged Teal, Anas discors

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[Mystery bird] Blue-winged Teal, Anas discors, photographed in Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]

Image: Joseph Kennedy, 10 March 2009 [larger view].

Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/400s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:

The white "fender" patch, bright brown sides, and gray head and neck quickly identify this shy quiz bird as a drake Blue-winged Teal; its more forthcoming companion is just as obviously a female Blue-winged Teal, with an overall cold plumage tone, narrow black bill, and heavy face pattern.

The male in this view reveals a character some birders may never have seen. Some males, particularly those breeding from Louisiana to southern Texas, show considerable white feathering on the crown and nape, often forming a white Y from behind. Such birds were once considered subspecifically distinct ("albinucha"), but the frequency of such nape markings is not strictly correlated with geography.

Blue-winged Teal is a common sight this time of year over most of temperate North America. Get out there and see if you can find your own "white-naped" drake!

Review all mystery birds to date.

More like this

Female and male blue-winged teal, the male in breeding plumage. The female shows the white eye arcs and white at the base of the bill, and the male shows the white hip patch.

Looks like Blue-wing Teal to me. The female has a broken eye-ring and shows a lighter patch at the base of the bill. The male has the white hip patch (Sibley) This view, of course, doesn't show the male's head to see the white on face.

I believe this is a pair of shovelers, although it is difficult to make a positive ID without seeing the sides or of the male or back end of the female. The giveaway for me was the size of the bill, and the white patch on the male's rump...almost exactly like the blue winged teal. Would also be good to know the season in which the photo was taken. If it is mid-March, the chances are better that it's a shoveler, since the winter populations are higher in Texas than those of the teal. I'm sure many have begun their northerly migration, however.

By K. Carlson (not verified) on 28 Mar 2009 #permalink

A duck and its protective decoy to fool the hunters. The decoy's the one on the life; it's obviously unanimated. The real duck is nonchalantly swimming away from the photographer, intending, probably, to hide behind its decoy, safe from the mighty maybe-hunter. Or perhaps it just saw a tasty bug�

That's a pretty good decoy. It'd fool some hunters, esp. those like Cheney, who thinks a lawyer looks like a duck. You rarely see such life-like decoys these days. I'm guessing the duck had a lot of time on her(? his?) webbed feet.

A pair of Blue-Winged Teal. They are closely related to Shovelers, in fact the drakes of both species have the same blue patch on the wing and the mid-eclipse drake Shoveler even has a teal-like white crescent on his face.
The spot-and-swirl pattern on the side of the drake here is a giveaway BWT field mark.