Unusal duck - Epping, London, UK (1 Viewer)

Any suggestions what this bird might be please? Seen at Connaught Water in Epping Forest, north-east London, in May 2009.

This guy had a damaged / missing right eye.

That looks suspiciously like a male Blue-winged Teal.

Jon

Yes, a Blue-winged Teal or hybrid. Clearly part of a collection, or an escape.

Connaught Water is absolutely notorious for escaped / released wildfowl. I think a pair of Blue-winged Teal hung around here a few years ago, so this isn't unprecendented.

This doesn't look like a pure blue-winged teal to me.

This is not a bluewinged teal, but a hybrid !

If I am right this could be Bluewinged Teal x Garganey (Look at scapulars and at undertail coverts!),
quite a rarely documented cross (There was one probable in austria last year)- so I would love to see more pictures to confirm, my suspicions!

Agree with the others it's not a pure BW teal - too much white on the face.

Until we see more pictures we should also not omoit the possibility of shoveler x garganey, though on this photo the bill doesn´t seem shoveler-like enough to me...

More pics of "Unusal duck" - Epping, London, UK

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you - been away...

Here are three more photos which may help.

Derek

Seems indeed like a hybrid Garganey x Bluewinged teal to me.

A bird that I haven´t seen before in this detail, so i can not be 100% sure .

But the 3 other hybrids with Garganey i remember from the Gillham books on hybrid ducks ( hybrids garganey with falcated duck, with hottentot teal and with silver teal) had a similarly striped pattern of undertail coverts. Also none of these birds showed the white eyebrow of garganey, but at least two of them had scapulars that showed the garganey influence.

This bird here also shows scapulars which remind of garganey , and the tertials also resemble garganey.

head coloration is mainly brown as in garganey, but there is a white half-moon as in Bluewinged teal and an area to the rear of the head which appears blueish green .
this points to bluewinged teal (though some shoveler hybrids can also show this)

breast and flank pattern also point to bluewinged teal, though on some thumbnails there seems to be a hind of a darker breast.

Derek, how were the leg colour, the size and the speculum of the bird, can you describe those?