This spring waterfowl migration has been great for a few species, among them being Green winged Teal, which have appeared in the hundreds. Whenever one comes across Green winged Teal it is always good to play attention to them as sometimes an intergrade Eurasian Green winged Teal x American Green winged Teal will show up or if you are really lucky a pure Eurasian Green winged Teal (AKA Common Teal) will grace us with its presence. This morning I was lucky enough to find a Eurasian Green winged Teal in among a flock of nearly 90 American Green winged Teal in Amherst. This is only the second time I have ever had this bird in the county. A little background on Green winged Teal complex. There are a variety of taxonomic authorities that determine what is a species among birds and some split the two types of Green winged Teal (American Green winged Teal and Eurasian Green winged Teal) into distinct species known as Green winged Teal in the new world and Common Teal in the old world (with some spillover into parts of Alaska). The taxonomy that eBird currently uses does not split the species as of now but I would not be surprised if they do in the future. Adult males of both species (or subspecies) are easily visually separated by a number of field marks with the most obvious being the location of the 'white stripe'...a vertical white one on the American Green winged Teal and a horizontal white line on the Eurasian Green winged Teal. David Sibley wrote a great post about all of this and the post can be found at the following link.
The two will breed and then share features of both and I have had this intergrade (or hybrid if they are indeed two distinct species) on a number of occasions in the county (including March 2018, April 2021 and at least one and possible more from early March to late March this year).
Overall I have seen pure looking Eurasian green winged Teal on four occasions ever with two in Hampshire County (today and then back in late April 2011 in Hadley), another at Fannie Stebbins on March 25, 2012 and a truly rare one down in the Bahamas on February 11, 2017, which is the only eBird record for the Bahamas and one of the southern most records ever for the species in the new world. I never saw the species when in Europe back in 2019!
Now back to working on my upcoming post from my trip down to the islands...with lots of photos...coming soon I promise.
No comments:
Post a Comment