Bird of month - Teal
This tiny duck can be found most of the year if you search really hard, but it is much more common in the winter months when, with northern European migrants, it is widely distributed throughout the Valley. A delightful dabbling duck, the Teal drake (above right) is beautifully coloured, the body is mainly grey with a white horizontal line, but it has a chestnut-coloured head with broad green sides from the eye back to the base of the neck and a striking yellow triangular panel under the tail, which is obvious from quite a distance and a great help to identification in poor light. The TeaL duck is much less distinctive being a mottled brown but the green speculum just showing beneath the folded wing and the size of the bird are helpful guides.
I recall finding a Teal on the river itself at Gerry’s Copse near Mytchett, it was very quiet and skulking, aware of my presence and continually drifting out of view along the edges of the river. This was exceptional because most sightings will take place at the larger waters in the Valley. The numbers at Moor Green Lakes are quite high and they can be quite easily seen on Colebrook Lake South through the hedge screens along the Blackwater Valley Path. Often they can also be seen on Frimley Bridge Lake sticking very close to the vegetation at the northern end and also out of sight in the reedbeds just south of there. Tongham Pond can hold good numbers but they are shy so when there are lots of dogs around they may disappear to less disturbed places.
Often the first time you know there are Teal around is when, in marshy habitat, they burst out of the water together all calling their ‘prip-prip’ call. Females have a quacking call rather higher pitched and faster than a Mallard. They circle around before either dropping into the marsh at a further point or flying off to another water.
As a novice birdwatcher many years ago, I walked a reservoir edge with a friend and we picked up a dead Teal. I was astonished that it was so small it would almost fit in the palm of my hand. The body is about 20-25cm long but its wingspan is more than double that. It is the smallest duck in Britain and only the rare summer visitor Garganey can be mistaken on size comparison.
There is a sub-species, the Green-winged Teal (above left) which is not likely to be encountered and very rarely more than one at a time! However, one was at Moor Green Lakes for several weeks in the winter of 2001/02 and they are found across the country on a fairly regular basis. This variant is a North American vagrant although the chances are that some have escaped from UK collections. The main difference is the drake has no horizontal white stripe on its body but has a vertical white stripe at the front of the breast. This is one for the ‘twitchers’ so if you see one in a publicly accessible place make sure to tell other birdwatchers so word spreads quickly!
Colin Wilson
Berkshire Ornithological Club
www.berksoc.org.uk
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