ARTICLES ON BIRDS, BIRDWATCHING AND OTHER WILDLIFE FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Blue-winged Teal at Goring Gap, West Sussex, England on May 7th 2003 - the fourth county record

On May 7th 2003 Christian Melgar found a drake Blue-winged Teal on the sea off Goring Gap, near Worthing, West Sussex, England. Although Blue-winged Teal is an annual vagrant to the British Isles in very small numbers, this is only the fourth acceptable record for Sussex, and thus constitutes a very good record for the county. As this was only the second for the county since 1970 it would have been very popular had it stayed at this location, however it flew off west after just a couple of hours. This record is very similar to the previous county record at Seaford in 1999, which was also seen at sea from the shore. What was possibly the same bird appeared in East Sussex in early June and remained for at least one month, although was generally elusive during its stay.

I visited Goring Gap, near Worthing, West Sussex in the hope of seeing a few seabirds pass by as I had a couple of hours to spare, however I had calculated the tide wrongly and it was still low tide, meaning that any seabirds would be rather distant. After scanning the sea with my binoculars and finding no birds whatsoever on the sea I decided to check the small groups of gulls which were scattered along the beach to the west of where I was seated. There was little variety with just Herring, Great black-backed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls present. As I scanned through the final, closest flock I noticed three ducks sitting on/by rocks beside the rock pools just offshore at the edge of the exposed rocks, close to the last gull flock. The first two I came to were a pair of Northern Shoveler, one of which was sitting on a rock and the other was in the water, but the third bird was smaller, darker and although it was facing away from me, and thus the face was not visible, I recognised it immediately as a Blue-winged Teal from the white rear flank patch, spotted flanks, black undertail and uniform-coloured head. There followed a few heart-stopping seconds until the bird turned around and a side-on view revealed the striking head pattern, as well as a better look at the body plumage and neatly-patterned scapulars. The bird was originally on the water but then as I watched, it climbed on one of the small rocks and sat down. Even though I had now fully identified the bird, I wanted to ensure that there was no possibility that it was a hybrid and so I ran down the beach to the water's edge and viewed the birds from along the beach. By this time the birds had stood up, presumably due to my presence (I was about 30 yards away by now) and I could see the birds belly and legs well (really for the first and last time, as after this the bird was on the water and the belly and feet only seen briefly). After a short while the three birds dropped onto the sea and swam a little further out. As I continued to watch the three ducks the tide started rapidly rising and I was forced to move further and further back up the beach to avoid becoming marooned on the sand or rocks. The birds during this time remained at about the same distance from the beach, seeming to remain above where the rock pools were where I had originally observed them. As soon as I had spent a few minutes scoping the Teal and getting all the relevant identification details I took some video footage and photographs (although by now the birds were not at their closest), just in case the birds took off before other observers could arrive. I then phoned the news out, so that as many observers could get to the site as quickly as possible, as I presumed that the bird would probably not stay for long in such an unlikely location. The first birders to arrive did so at about 10.40, almost an hour after I first observed the bird. A few more local birders arrived between 10.50 and 11.50, when the bird flew off high west with the 2 Shoveler.

Although the Blue-winged Teal was associating with the pair of Shoveler, they were obviously a courting pair (conducting head bobbing etc) and would frequently chase the Teal a short distance away, and so more often than not the Teal would remain a few yards away from the Shoveler, only occasionally swimming right alongside them, and when they were first observed on the rocks. On one occasion the drake Shoveler actually grabbed hold of the Blue-winged Teal's tail feathers and started tugging at them, this forcing the Teal to "scoot" across the water's surface with wings outstretched and flapping quite considerably, this was the first time that I could see the wing pattern and the fact that the bird's wings were fully intact. The upperwing pattern was also observed a few times after this, particularly on two occasions when the bird was preening and wing-stretching. The legs were seen when standing on the rocks and the left leg seen once during one of these preening sessions (when kicking its head) and was seen to be unringed.

Overall shape: Smaller and daintier than the two Shoveler, with a smooth, quite rounded head. Body slimmer and smaller than Shoveler. Head: Slate grey-blue, perhaps slightly paler on the cheeks (or perhaps darker on the crown giving the impression of paler cheeks), but overall the same colour. Large, obvious white facial crescent, slightly wider in the middle than at either end, located between the eye and the bill. Bill: Slender, comparatively long, all-dark. Legs: Dull yellowish in colour, seen well when standing on rocks and appeared unringed. The fairly close proximity and good light at the time, I feel, would have made any rings present obvious. The left leg only was then seen when the bird was preening on the water and was again seen to be unringed, although views of the leg were very brief on this occasion and harder to see than when out of the water on the rocks. Other observers at the time also did not note an rings on the leg when it was scratching its head. Eye: All-dark, exact colour not seen.

The photograph below clearly shows the upperwing pattern (blue, white and dark brown), with the darker secondaries and paler primaries, as well as the pale underwing, dark plumage, white facial crescent and slender, all-dark bill.

Figure 1. Drake Blue-winged Teal at Goring Gap, nr. Worthing, West Sussex, May 7th 2003 © by Ian Barnard.

Upperparts: Darkish brown with pale-centred, elongated scapulars "cloaking" over the rear of the back. Primaries appeared all-dark when swimming. Underparts: Slightly paler brown than the upperparts with well-marked dark spots, some rounded some slightly oval in shape, which continued along the flanks forward to the breast and back to the white patch at the rear of the flanks. Breast ground-colour perhaps slightly darker than flanks. Obvious white patch at the rear of the flanks, between the flanks and the undertail coverts. Undertail coverts black. Black tail, with thin white line separating undertail from tail. Underwing: Pale/white for most of underwing but slightly darker greyish to front and rear, although hard to see exactly and I was concentrating on the bird's upperwing more. Upperwing: Brown primaries, dark secondaries (exact colour not seen, despite good light, but presumably dark green, which in the light may have appeared dark/blackish) much darker than primaries and not translucent like primaries (as in photograph 1). Pale blue uniform-coloured forewing very obvious. Obvious White wedge between the blue forewing and the secondaries, becoming narrower towards the bird's body. Blue and white forewing pattern recalling Shoveler's wing pattern, but easily separated by rest of plumage (head, bill, etc). The Blue-winged Teal's wing lacked white trailing edge of Garganey.

The photograph below shows well the facial patterning, black and white stern and brownish body plumage with small dark (black) spots and ovals along the flanks and breast.

Figure 2. Drake Blue-winged Teal at Goring Gap, nr. Worthing, West Sussex, May 7th 2003 © by Ian Barnard.

Map 1. Map of the United Kingdom showing position of West and East Sussex.		Map 2. Map of West and East Sussex, England with Goring Gap shown.

Photograph of Goring Gap, West Sussex at High Tide, 2004 © Christian Melgar.

Photograph of Goring Gap, West Sussex at Low Tide, 2004 © Christian Melgar.

CHRISTIAN W. MELGAR, West Sussex, November 2003.

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