Blue Moon - Count the Species Shot

Thought this shot I captured during the winter storm might provide some offseason fun for the tribe, at least for those that enjoy working on your waterfowl ID skills. View on a big monitor or zoom in and let us know what species you can identify.

I see pintail, spoonie, ringer, widgeon, and wood duck... and maybe some gaddies??

Sorry everyone. I uploaded what I assumed was a large enough image to make it easy to see the details to help with identification but the image appears downsized, at least in the browsers I checked, compared to what I uploaded so it might not be possible to make out the various species as easily as I'd hoped. I was going to delete the post but that's not showing up as an option.

Definitely gadwall, a canvasback in the left middle. Maybe a coromorant bottom left in the water?

OK - Let's try this again... I split the image up into three sections hoping it will be easier to see details.

I saw 7
Can
Spoonie
Ringer
Pintail
Gadwal
GWT
Widgeon

Cormorant - aka water turkey...forgot that one!

2.

Mallard
OTM

My can was a ringer. My bad.

Are those blue bill on the water?

Maybe I’m missing the obvious, but what is this dude? Green head, orange legs/feet, shoveler shaped bill but has what appears to be a large or double white crescent behind bill?



.

Good eye. That was one of mystery ducks in the shot that I hoped would make the game more interesting. When I first reviewed the image I thought some Blue-winged Teal were in the shot because several were on the lake and at first glance, a few of the male shovelers have the Blue-winged Teal shaped crescent that is usually a giveaway that it’s a BWT. Then I started to think they may just be non-breeding drake Shovelers coming into breeding plumage or maybe the one circled is a Shoveler x-Blue-winged Teal hybrid.

Keep in mind this image was captured in early February and some of the non-breeding male shovelers often have drab winter plumage. Also, I’ve seen many pictures of non-breeding male shovelers that have a very faint crescent that disappears when they get their breeding plumage. There is a good example of what I assume is a non-breeding male shoveler with a faint crescent face marking - see the lower of the three in the pic with an arrow.


I’m not as familiar with seeing one in breeding plumage with the crescent face marking that isn’t a hybrid. Anyone know for sure?

Also, the five drake divers on the water are canvasbacks. We had a couple of dozen canvasbacks and redheads mixed together but I think all of these were the cans along with a couple of Double-crested Cormorants.

There are a bunch of canvas backs.

The ones in the water?
The one I thought was definitely a ringer lol

There’s another on the right hand side of the left photo.

Guy's been hanging out with Hopedale. You's two can shoot 5 apiece of them wood ducks

You guys did great. The image size restriction the forum has made it much more difficult to see the details in the smaller image after I uploaded it compared to what it looked like on my monitor in full resolution. Guess I'll stick to only posting tight close up shots in the future. Just wanted to point out that there is for sure a a ring-necked duck and a Green-winged Teal in the shot.

Also, regarding the crescent on the drake shovelers faces, I've seen dozens of shots of drake shovelers that have a faint crescent before they get their full breeding plumage so I'm leaning toward that's all it is based on no other Teal markings. The male pointed out in this pic has it also. Again, this was still in winter, early February, so they were still getting their breeding plumage. Here is a zoomed in section of the left side of the image to see the ringer and GWT:

All I see is a bunch of ducks.....probably a good deal I don't hunt them.....

I noticed that immediately! Looks like a Shoveler/BWT Hybrid perhaps! Badass!

Send it to Ben Pierce of the Hybrid Club on Facebook. He can point you in the right direction. Looks to be a hybrid.