Teal for two... It seems that the waterfowl are becoming much more acquainted with the pond as autumn creeps forward; there were no less than 20 birds on the pond this morning. At first look, it seemed that the cohort was made up of the ubiquitous Mallard, but after a few minutes with the binoculars I was able to count three pairs of Teal, two Dabchicks (Little Grebe), and two Moorhens; the remaining cohort were the charming but less exciting mallard. Not to be rude about the mallards, these are truly wild mallard that lift from the pond the moment you get within 50 meters of approaching them, as the Mallard lift off, they spook the other birds into flight also (no opportunity to feed the ducks with breadcrusts on this pond). I should not blame the Mallards for my poor stalking skills and to be honest I think the Teal were onto me fairly early on. The rather poor pictures below are a testament to how difficult it was to get close enough to capture the exquisite colours and markings of the tiny Teal. As my first ever pictures of Teal on the pond, I'm happy to have been able to record of their presence but I hope to fair MUCH BETTER in the future... This may involve getting my portable hide out and spend a few hours in waiting to get better pictures, however the trouble with that plan is that that the birds drop in at dusk during low light levels and approaching them during the day / in the morning to get into the hide unseen would be just as difficult. I'm not quite ready to spend all night in the hide to wait until the morning when light levels will be more favorable, so for now, I have resorted to put the camera trap out and hopefully that will do my bidding and provide some close-up video and stills of the Teal without risking disturbing them.
Two Teal preening
.JPG)
Male Mallard (foreground) 3 x Teal background
Spooked Mallard leaving in a hurry...
Closely followed by the Teal
