[birding] Female Blue-winged Teal at E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area

[Joel Geier]

Hi folks,

Yesterday (25 Feb) I was looking through a flock of about 30
Green-winged Teal on the scrape pond in the south part of E.E. Wilson
Wildlife Area when I noticed one odd teal that was a little larger,
longer-billed, and had a pale chin & throat. Based on face pattern
including a dark streak through the eye, this appeared to be a female
BLUE-WINGED TEAL.

Since my view was just with binoculars, and peeking through some bushes
to avoid flushing the flock (teal flocks that use this pond tend to be
very wild and spook *very* easily), I'm not absolutely sure that this
wasn't a female Garganey, which would be the other duck that looks sort
of like this. But it really looked fine for a Blue-winged Teal and I
didn't see a dark line across the gape area, which should have been
noticeable on a Garganey.

This is early for a migrant Blue-winged Teal, and usually they show up
in pairs. I looked through the flock pretty thoroughly, checking for
Eurasian G-w Teal, and I'm sure I would have seen a male Blue-winged
Teal if it was there. So I'm guessing that this bird might have been
hanging out with Green-winged Teal all winter, and just went under our
radar.

I couldn't relocate Wednesday's probable Slate-colored Fox Sparrow. That
patch was catching some wind yesterday and had fewer sparrows willing to
sit up in view; I also didn't see nearly as many of the Golden-crowned
Sparrows that it was with, nor the White-throated Sparrow. So ... will
try again another day.

Happy birding,
Joel

--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis