The teal was still there when I left at 9:45. All the ducks took flight shortly after I posted, but luckily almost all of them settled in again after a few minutes. When I left, the best viewing was from Rt. 38 at Hart Road, where you can pull off on the north side or park on Hart Road and scope from there. Most of the birds were along the shore in the open water there, though when I first found it, the majority of the birds were closer to George Road. In the afternoon when the light has shifted, viewing might be better from George Road.
As I mentioned before, Common Teal is currently considered a subspecies of Green-winged Teal, but it is still a very rare bird around here and could well be split before long. They are common in the Old World. I have found this form twice before at George Road, first on 5 March 2004, when the birds was present for a few days and then refound (presumably the same bird?) on April 25; then I found one there again on 27 March 2007. Although it might not stand out if you're not looking for it, this subspecies is pretty distinctive. The most obvious character is that instead of having the small white vertical shoulder bar of our American subspecies, it has a long, bold horizontal white bar along the side where the wing folds. American Green-wingeds can show some white in this area too, but it is never as bold as on Eurasian (and Eurasian lacks the vertical shoulder bar.) Other less obvious characters include bolder pale edges on the face (the green mask has bright gold edges) and a white (not buff) wing-stripe (haven't seen today's bird in flight yet.) Here are a few pictures I got this morning. No matter where you look from the ducks are a little distant, so they're not great, but you can get a good sense of it (and even compare with some Americans in some shots.) Scroll on from this photo to see more. https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-J_DMNrzf5l0piRft4IwHw?feat=directlink Other new arrivals at George Road were a male Bufflehead and a second female Redhead. I will post updates in the coming days if this bird sticks around. Good luck if you try for it! Jay McGowan Dryden, NY -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
