Scott and all,

Do you know that immature male Northern Shovelers at this time of
year can have a white facial crescent? Usually the breast shows a
fair amount of white in such birds, however, and there is a white
flank patch. Also, male Australian Shovelers have a mostly reddish
body and a distinct facial crescent. Seems unlikely it would be that
species, although they are kept by waterfowl fanciers. Of course,
both would have the honkin' big bill of a shoveler, and I don't
recall whether the bill on this bird was shoveler size or teal size.

Otherwise, it's hard to see how you would combine characters of all
three species, unless it has genes from all of them. Sounds like the
only Blue-winged mark is the face crescent, and I would suggest that
that might not indicate Blue-winged genes, as the mark occurs in
shovelers.

Dennis

On Dec 5, 2008, at 12:02 PM, tweeters-
request at mailman2.u.washington.edu wrote:

> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:26:44 -0800
> From: "Scott Carpenter" <slcarpenter at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Tweeters] Clark County: Swainson's Hawk, Hybrid
> Shoveler/Teal
>
> Once again, the hybrid NORTHERN SHOVELER X BLUE-WINGED TEAL was at
> the River
> S Unit of Ridgefield NWR. I found it with my scope from the south
> end of
> Rest Lake. When its head was tucked in, it was extremely hard to
> distinguish from nearby Cinnamon Teal -- the breast and flanks
> appeared
> almost identical. Fortunately, it popped its head out twice in the
> 30 or so
> minutes I was scanning for it, and the crescent on the face was very
> obvious, even at a distance. This bird is very interesting in that
> it has a
> red breast that matches its flanks, and the color is like a
> Cinnamon Teal, a
> green head with a yellow eye that matches a Northern Shoveler, and
> a face
> crescent that matches a Blue-winged Teal.
>
> Scott Carpenter
> Portland, Oregon

-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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