On the abundance of Eurasian Widgeons and hybrids in our area:

A few years ago I counted a lot of Widgeons in the Seattle area. About
one in 50 was a "Eurasian". A small percentage of those appeared to be
hybrids. While many of you already know this, though a number of books and
the name "Eurasian" implies they don't belong here, our area is the normal
winter home of a relatively small population of "Eurasisan" Widgeons. If
not for the American Widgeons, the Eurasians wouldn't seem that rare at all.
My presume that somewhere in the islands that stretch from Alaska to
Siberia, the Eurasian and American Widgeon populations meet or overlap and
occasionally hybridize. I suspect the eastern most summer population of
"Eurasians" always migrates down on the N. American side of the Pacific
Ocean and would be "strays" only if they wintered on the Asian coast. Maybe
there's an area where birds will randomly join a flock down going the east
coast (our west coast) or one headed down the west coast of the Pacific (the
"far east"). Does anyone have any better info on this?

Stewart Wechsler
Seattle
mailto:ecostewart at quidnunc.net

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