Tag: Teal

Female Teal

juvenile teal

There were plenty of mallards, gadwall and nine shovelers (three drakes, six females/juveniles) on the Lower Lake at Nostell this morning, but it was this little duck, which didn’t look much bigger than a dabchick, that had us puzzled. It’s a teal, and the conspicuous triangular pattern on its back suggests that this is a female in breeding plumage. Juveniles have dark feathers on the back, with just narrow, lighter margins.

The note I’ve written on my sketch, that the female should always show a speculum, is something we read (or perhaps misread) on the Internet, but it’s incorrect according to Noel Cusa’s illustration in The Birds of the Western Palearctic, which shows the female with speculum completely covered by the surrounding breast and back feathers. I’ll go with that as you can’t get any more authoritative than The Birds of the Western Palearctic.

The female was on her own but when we returned forty minutes later there was no sign of her. Although this duck looked so petite compared with the nearby mallards and gadwall, the teal is in fact about 25% bigger than a dabchick.

We saw just one goosander this morning, a drake on the Upper Lake.

Nostell Middle Lake
Wigeon, gadwall and mallard on the Middle Lake at Nostell in yesterday morning’s fog.

Teal in Eclipse

teal field sketch

At this time of year there are juvenile teal around, which look rather like the females but the drakes are in eclipse plumage so they too look very similar. It won’t be until the autumn that they moult into their winter plumage.

lagoonIt’s warm this afternoon, 24°C, 77°F, and, typically for the summer, there’s not a lot going on. At the Reedbed Hide a family of swans swim by; there are coot dotted about on the lagoon and moorhen probing the vegetation alongside the reedbed.

treeAs they peck at the mud, the young moorhen are currently in dull brown plumage with lighter streaks. They remind me of waders, but without the long, probing bills.

On the Mere, along with the teal, there’s the odd lapwing and a little egret.

It’s a quiet time for the birds but dragonflies are busy, hawking over the paths around and egg-laying in the lagoons.

Link

Old Moor RSPB Reserve

Lapwing Meadow

lapwingteal2The flood has subsided since I drew the Strands, a field between the river and the canal, a month or two ago. Two pairs teal are disturbed as we walk by; a heron stalks patiently amongst the rushes; and a pair of lapwing seem to be considering nesting on an open stretch of the field exposed by the retreating water. There’s another single lapwing not far away.

tealChiff-chaff and willow warbler are singing from trees and bushes alongside the canal.

heronA hirundine flies over the canal; we don’t get a brilliant view but we don’t spot any tail streamers and it then starts making a chirruping call which we’re familiar with from previous years: house martinit’s our first house martin of the year.

Jack Snipe

jack snipe

Reedbed Hide, RSPB Old Moor, 10.30 a.m.

jack snipes

Six jack snipe, bills tucked in, are resting right by the water’s edge, blending in perfectly with the dry reeds. They appear to be about the size of a starling.

It’s a good example of how useful it can be to have other birdwatchers about as we would never have picked them out and our binoculars don’t bring out the detail that the telescope, set up and trained on them, gives.

gadwallWhat I could see of the eyestripe doesn’t look very conspicuous but the stripes on the back showed up well, even through my binoculars. They’re white beneath with a dull brown breast that I’d describe as mottled rather than speckled like a thrush.

Jack snipe breed in northern Europe and join us in the winter.

Two pairs of gadwall are dabbling nearby.

golden plovers

golden ploversA large flock of lapwings and two hundred or more golden plover wheel around. A marsh harrier has been hunting over the reedbeds but we don’t catch sight of one today.

The golden plover do their own version of the famous murmurations performed by flocks of starlings, though not in such tight formation. As the flock decides on what direction it will head, a V-shaped chevron forms along its margins.

They pass directly overhead, filling my field of vision as I look up.

teal drake

wigeonTeal are dabbling around a little island.

Wigeon have come ashore to graze on a spit of land that divides the lakes.

wigeons grazing

shelducks

We’re surprised to see a pair of shelduck upending on the wader scrape lagoon. In the background there’s a smaller, squatter drake shoveller, which sits lower in the water, so we have a chance to compare these two conspicuous ducks.

wigeon