(Please see picture gallery below – if you have any pix please send to sheilaelliot@yahoo.com)

July Bird of the Month – Green-winged Teal 

From Ben Kolstad’s article in the July-August Kite: “

It’s the drake that catches the eye; hens are cryptically colored, brown and resembling the male more in shape than anything else (apart from the color of the speculum, those feathers in the wing that provide each species its common name).

July’s bird of the month is our smallest duck, a dabbler (as opposed to diving ducks): Anas crecca, the Green-winged Teal. The male in breeding plumage is quite handsome, with a rich brown head broken by a green mask, and a white bar on the shoulder (his close cousin the Common Teal from Eurasia, should you chance to meet him, has a bold white outline around the mask, and lacks the white bar on the shoulder). Common in our local wetlands in the winter…

Come to our July meeting to hear our own bird expert, Clive Pinnock, tell us more about this bird.”

(Photographer’s please note that next month’s July 2014 Bird will be the  Blue-winged Teal)