Roys 365 for 2017

Roy1961 · Mar 23, 2017

Dawg Pics said:
Looks like you are adjusting well to the D500.

getting there (I think).

Stoshowicz · Mar 23, 2017

Roy1961 said:
View attachment 249355

This kind of thing is what makes IDs difficult , see that teal next to the drake ,, It doesn't have the classic marks I was described for cinnamon teal. There wern't other species around was there?

sonicbuffalo_RIP · Mar 23, 2017

Looking good Roy!

Roy1961 · Mar 24, 2017

Stoshowicz said:
This kind of thing is what makes IDs difficult , see that teal next to the drake ,, It doesn't have the classic marks I was described for cinnamon teal. There wern't other species around was there?

no, the only 2 in this pond, are you saying they are not mr and mrs cinnamon teal?

Stoshowicz · Mar 24, 2017

Roy1961 said:
no, the only 2 in this pond, are you saying they are not mr and mrs cinnamon teal?

Well the ID informative blog that I just saw says that the cinnamon teal is supposed to have lighter eyes and less whitish eye-ring than the Blue winged- more like a green winged, had a nice picture and all, seemed very straight forward. Yours has the bold eyering , and darkish eye but combined with ,, short n faint black eye line , warmer color tone, pale bill edge.

Im thinking you guys have the cinnamon mostly , and we have the blue winged,, but they can cross or end up on either coast. So when I see the females I look to see if any might be cinnamons over here, which would be a nice bird to spot.
Anyway .. the problem with showing only one pic as an example of things is that they always seem to pick birds that appear to show the extreme classic look of the species, and so its hard to distinguish the ones which do NOT look so classically different. And Im trying to have a mental pic of the degree of variation , and the most blatant distinguishing factor.
If you just had the One drake well then I guess the eye as a distinguishing characteristic is not as reliable as the warm body tone., if you had some others I would check those out to see if maybe it was a mixed flock , ducks and geese often select mates of close species , I think it has to do with the habit of laying eggs in another birds nest . So the bird acting as parent can end up with two dozen chicks , and can potentially errors can happen. ( ugly duckling actually a swan)
I hope I said that clearly . in short , even a mated pair doesn't mean you have matching species or full blooded birds.
OR said another way, You cant be sure you have a matched set.