[TN-Bird] MOTTLED DUCK at Dutch Bottoms, Jefferson Co.

From: K Dean EDWARDS <kde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tennessee Birds <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 22:44:24 -0400 (EDT)
Bad weather = good birds

Lots of good birds seen tonight but the highlight was the
Mottled Duck at Dutch Bottoms in Jefferson Co., TN.  Wallace
gave good directions to where this bird was seen.  I almost
didn't stop here on my way to Rankin and actually crossed
the bridge and turned around when I saw several terns while
on the bridge.  In my hurry to get to Rankin after work,
I forgot to grab any books other than a couple of shorebird
books (I was going for the Red-necked Phalarope) and wanted
to recheck some points on separating Black and Mottled before
committing to Mottled but I'm sure now it was a Mottled.

I was looking at the terns (more later) and did a quick scan
of about 200+ Mallards sitting on the bank which is about
a mile upstream of the bridge.  A dark bird with dark blue
speculum and no obvious white caught my attention.  It's
head was initially down preening but when it lifted it, the
bright, rich buffy face and throat were stunningly obvious.
As it continued to preen, it stretched out it's wings and I
could see that there was only a very thin trailing edge of
white on the speculum.  The body of the bird was dark.  It
was too far to make out too many details, even at 60x.  I did
make out some buffy color in the back feathers, but couldn't
distinguish any pattern to it other than it looked to have
buffy feather edges.  Also couldn't make out the dark gape
spot due to distance.  Tail was all dark unlike the white
tails of the Mallards.  The rich buffy face really made the
eyeline appear prominent.  In my opinion, the buffy face was
MUCH too bright for Am Black Duck and looked very plain with
no apparent streaking.  The buffy head, white trailing edge
to the speculum, indication of buffy coloring in the back
feathers (though I couldn't conclusively tell the pattern of
the buffy, it was clearly there) and all dark tail feathers
lead me to conclude Mottled over Am Black Duck or Mallard X
Black hybrid.

Light was good, but not great (but better than Wallace implied).
My scope/camera combination is horrible at digiscoping and I
was unable to get any photos that were more than a dark blur
that might be a duck... or a tree.  I had the bird from about
5:15 until 6:00PM at which point I continued on to Rankin.

I've seen many Mottled Duck in Florida, Alabama and Texas and
of course seen hundreds of Am Black Duck and a good number of
Mallard X Am Black Duck hybrids.

To clarify Wallace and Jeff's comments, there has been one record
of Mottled Duck submitted to the Tennessee Bird Records Committee,
the pair in Henry Co. that Mike Todd reported.  This report was
recently accepted by the TBRC as will be reported in an upcoming
issue of The Migrant and as I reported on TN-Birds a week
or so back.  There are at 3 earlier reports of Mottled Duck in TN
that I am aware of (those that Jeff mentioned) however, while
they have been published (North American Birds and the season
report in The Migrant), they have not been submitted to the TBRC.
Hence the one "accepted" record Wallace mentioned.  If accepted,
this will be the first record for East TN.  On a side note, there
was recently a Mottled Duck reported from the Atlanta area.

More on other birds later.


Dean Edwards
Knoxville, TN




=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================

The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with
first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation.
You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds
you report were seen.  The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should
appear in the first paragraph.
_____________________________________________________________
      To post to this mailing list, simply send email to:
                    tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_____________________________________________________________ 
                To unsubscribe, send email to:
                 tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
            with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
______________________________________________________________
  TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society 
       Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s)
        endorse the views or opinions expressed
        by the members of this discussion group.
 
         Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
                 wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                ------------------------------
                Assistant Moderator Andy Jones
                         Cleveland, OH
                -------------------------------
               Assistant Moderator Dave Worley
                          Rosedale, VA
__________________________________________________________
         
          Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
              web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

                          ARCHIVES
 TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/

                  EXCELLENT MAP RESOURCES
Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp
Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif
Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com

_____________________________________________________________
[TN-Bird] MOTTLED DUCK at Dutch Bottoms, Jefferson Co.

Other related posts:
