Emily,

I saw two Eurasian Wigeon males at Green Lake on Sunday, and assume that they are the same birds you saw.
Both have faint green on the side of the head, in a fairly similar pattern as the American Wigeon males do, but much fainter. This is not like the green speckled spot that Eurasian Wigeon males typically have (back in Holland where I grew up), a much smaller spot that doesn't curve down like the Americans.'
Whether this extensive faint green indicates that these guys have some mixed parentage, I don't know. They sure look more Eurasian than American to me. One of the two males vocalized when I saw him, and he sure sounded like a full-blown Eurasian (drawn-out note, with emphasis on the second syllable, rather than the two-or-three syllable American call; Sibley gives a good description of the different calls).

Cheers,
Martin Muller, Seattle
martinmuller at msn.com<mailto:martinmuller at msn.com>

----- Original Message -----
From: Emily A Stoll<mailto:stollea at u.washington.edu>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 4:23 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Eurasian x American wigeon hybrids at Green Lake?



Hi everyone,

I'm basically a novice birder but I'm getting pretty confident at identifying ducks, if I do say so myself (they're my favorites!) and today while running at Green Lake I saw two Eurasian wigeons amid the flock of American wigeons that seems to enjoy spending most of the winter at Green Lake. Here's the thing though - today the flock was close enough to the shore that I could see the two Eurasian wigeons very close with the naked eye, and noticed that both (males) had a small iridescent green patch - barely noticeable - to the right of their eyes. I looked in my Sibley guide and saw that in the non-breeding plumage it appears that male Eurasian wigeons *might* have a tiny bit of green near their eyes, but it seemed like both these males were in breeding plumage. I'm guessing these guys will stick around for awhile as last winter I saw two Eurasian wigeons in the flock for at least a couple
of months. If anyone else sees them and can confirm whether or not they're hybrids, that'd be great!

Thanks,

Emily Stoll
Seattle, WA
stollea at u.washington.edu<mailto:stollea at u.washington.edu>