We found the Falcated Teal at Tofino yesterday morning (2/5/95) at
about 1.5 hrs after stated low tide. Nasty day (driving drenching rain
all day, and more like a 3 hr drive from Naniamo to Tofino), but the bird
was worth it!
The bird seemed almost as wet as we were, so that its falcated
feathers drooped over and were plastered to its rear end, making them
less obvious. Someone who was there when we arrived said that the
falcated feathers on previous, nicer days, were much more spectacular.
Bad hair--I mean feather--day, I guess.
Of some mild surprise to me was the fact that the green (black when
viewed at distance--especially through continually fogging scopes!) line
splitting the white throat (as shown in the NGS guide), was not complete.
Rather, the thickest part of this line was where it emerged from the
back of the neck, and the line narrowed and disappeared entirely in the
white feathers of the throat, leaving the whole front of the throat all
white. Was this another artifact of a wet-feather day, or is there
seasonal or developmental changes in the extent of this throat band, or
natural variability which the NGS plate does not show? Just curious, and
certainly not intended to question the ID of this unmistakable duck.
Similarly, I was curious about my observation of a pale (not really
white) horizontal bar on the sides (flanks) just below the
wings--somewhat reminiscent of the horizontal scapular bar of the
Aleutian (*creca*) race of the Green-winged Teal. I wondered if this was
not merely a line of whitish down feathers peeking from under the wing,
or some other artifact from the bird's wet condition.
The teal, during most of the time we watched it (about an hour),
stayed attentively close to an apparent (?) female Gadwall, even when the
pair split off from the gaggle of Gadwalls it was with when we arrived.
Or is this female also a Falcated? We could not decide, under the
viewing conditions, whether the female had an all-dark bill or some
yellowish, so are still pondering whether the drake Falcated Teal's
consort was a female Gadwall or not. Are these two species known to
interbreed? Any others observe the social life of this bird?
Glad to hear that this bird is likely to be accepted as a bona fide
record!
Thanks, Bryan Gates, for the helpful info you've been posting!
*********************************************
Larry McCloskey
Dept of Biological Sciences
Walla Walla College, College Place, WA 99324
mcclla at wwc.edu
509-527-2481
*********************************************