Hello from Arizona,

I'm joining this discussion rather late, but what looks like the same hybrid
shoveler showed up near Phoenix, Arizona on 10 Mar 2007.

At the time speculation was "exotic Australasian Shoveler X Cinnamon Teal
hybrid."

You can see pictures of it here, whatever it is:
http://www.azfo.org/gallery/noshXcite.html

Andrew Core
Tucson, AZ
fivecores AT gmail.com



On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 9:58 AM, Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson at comcast.net>wrote:

> Hello, tweets.
> For anyone interested in hybrid ducks, here is a website with some photos:
>
> http://www.gobirding.eu/Photos/HybridDucks.php
>
> Of great interest, the photographer (Dave Appleton) shows a duck that looks
> very much like the duck photographed by Scott Carpenter at Ridgefield NWR
> and calls it a hybrid Northern Shoveler x Blue-winged Teal. As in the
> Ridgefield bird, the white facial mark is rather different from the same
> mark in a Blue-winged Teal, although more like that of an Australian
> Shoveler. I assume the parentage is speculative rather than definite. As the
> bird was in England, where neither Blue-winged nor Cinnamon Teal breed, this
> makes it even more puzzling. If a wild vagrant from North America,
> Blue-winged breed a lot closer to England than Cinnamon do, and a
> Blue-winged hybrid seems more likely.
>
> However, there are a lot of waterfowl fanciers in the UK with many species
> in their collections, and these collections are prime venues for
> hybridization, as there might not be pairs of every species. As I wrote
> earlier, the mating urge is strong, and animals will often attempt to mate
> with another similar species if they can't find a mate of their own species.
> The Mallard x Egyptian Goose hybrids reported on this site indicate that it
> doesn't even have to be a similar species! Ducks are notorious for their
> indiscriminate mating habits.
>
> The eye in the UK bird is a bit darker than the one in Scott's photos. Male
> Northern Shovelers have yellow eyes, Blue-winged Teal brown eyes, and
> Cinnamon Teal red eyes. I know nothing about the inheritance of eye color in
> ducks, but it might be influenced in hybrids by which parent was which sex.
> -----
> Dennis Paulson
> 1724 NE 98 St.
> Seattle, WA 98115
> 206-528-1382
> dennispaulson at comcast.net
>
>
>
>
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>


--
Andrew Core
Tucson, AZ