This pair was photographed at Cuesta Inlet, near where I live - on the edge of Morro Bay (Coastal Central California), on 3/25/10. Please let me know your ID and the reasons for your it, by clicking on "comments" at the bottom of this post. I will post the ID on Wednesday evening.
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See the comments section for the answer.
BlueWing Teal--White crecent on head
ReplyDeleteBlued-winged Teal. The crescent on the male's face and the white near the tail are truly distinctive, at which point their lack on the female is also distinctive.
ReplyDeleteThe male is self-evident with the crescent on his face.
ReplyDeleteThe female field marks are more subtle: the broken eye-ring and the darker eye line, the lighter feathers at the base of the beak, the larger (than the male) body feathers.
Pat
The white crescent and hip patch on the male, and the faint eyestripe and equal size compared to the male for the female identify these two birds as BLUE-WINGED TEAL.
ReplyDeleteI must have made this too hard! First impressions are not always right.
ReplyDeleteThe female doesn't show enough pale in front of the bill. It must be a female Cinnamon Teal
ReplyDeleteMike
It would be easy to concur that this is a pair of BW Teal ... however, I wonder whether the female, is a Cinnamon or a hybrid (on eBird there is BWT, CT ABD Blue-winged/Cinnamon Teal... implies hybrid or 'don't know'?)due to her bill appearing a bit thicker and longer w/ light edge, like NShoveler (Sibley). Her coloration is more cinnamon than the gray of a F BWTeal ... After all this, I also see that Weds evening is April Fool's Eve ...
ReplyDeleteEveryone correctly identified the male Blue-winged Teal, but some were thrown off by the female Cinnamon Teal that was photographed with it - a combination worth noting in the eastern half of this country, but not unusual here on Morro Bay in the winter. The female Cinnamon Teal is typically more of a warm brown (this one is in fact more of a warm brown color than many Cinnamons), has a more spatulate bill than the Blue-winged, has a smaller headed appearance with a more slick-backed look to the head (Blue-winged has a larger more blocky look to the head), and the face on a Blue-winged has a more prominate white loral spot and overall more contrasty pattern - often with more contrast between a lighter supercillium and darker cap than the Cinnamon. I have posted a photo of a female Bule-winged and a male taken from the same location this winter, for comparison. Next Bird ID Challenge is Sunday evening.
ReplyDelete