Are these brown teal or scaup

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WillB
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Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby WillB » Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:09 pm

Central Auckland sighting of brown teal? ..can anyone help confirm, please?
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image 2.JPG (277.35 KiB) Viewed 2461 times
image 1.JPG
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image 1.JPG (420.45 KiB) Viewed 2461 times
SomesBirder
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Re: Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby SomesBirder » Thu Mar 12, 2020 1:15 am

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Last edited by SomesBirder on Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ian McLean
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Re: Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby Ian McLean » Thu Mar 12, 2020 9:24 am

Hello Will
Whereabouts in Auckland is this ?
Stonefields Wetland in Mt Wellington & nearby Waiatarua Reserve in Remuera are two sites where Scaup & Pateke are often seen.
Cheers
Ian
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RussCannings
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Re: Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby RussCannings » Thu Mar 12, 2020 11:00 am

I can see where the teal-theory comes from, but I believe these are all NZ Scaup--the larger one is an adult female and the smaller/fuzzy ones are juvenile scaup. The eye-ring is a misleading feature however the head/bill/body shape is better for scaup as is the fairly uniform brown plumage. Even at a young age, Brown Teal show fairly obvious pale fringes to the flank feathers, and the head/bill profile is more evenly rounded or elongated like most dabbling ducks (as opposed to the more compact or even peaked crowns of NZ Scaup).

The left-hand bird in the second image has potential but I think it's just one of the same juvies at a weird angle.

Russ C
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Kevin_Evans
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Re: Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby Kevin_Evans » Thu Mar 12, 2020 4:52 pm

Scaup, but don't worry, I field at least 1 or 2 calls a month of people thinking they have seen pateke that turn out to be scaup.
Jan
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Location: Christchurch

Re: Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby Jan » Thu Mar 12, 2020 5:04 pm

Hey, Somes,
It was from photos and I would have said what you did. What are you doing now? Don't bother about getting it a bit .....iffy.
Finn Davey
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Re: Are these brown teal or scaup

Postby Finn Davey » Fri Mar 13, 2020 10:25 am

Looks like an adult female with her juveniles

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