A Baikal Teal was photographed yesterday (12-17-2004) at Kent Ponds, King Co., WA. The photos clearly show a Baikal Teal, but is it a real one. By real I mean, not an escaped aviary specimen. Escaped or origin questionable birds would be, in the parlance of northwest birders, fake.
In a day and age when one can buy Baikal Teal over the internet, it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell the real ducks from the fake ones. And teal are a favorite among amateur aviculturists because they're so gosh darn cute. Escapes are routine.
Meanwhile, genuinely real Baikal Teal in their native spaces are undergoing a population decline. This would mean that the likelihood of catching a stray vagrant in Washington state would be smaller than it used to be. There hasn't been an accepted record of Baikal Teal on the West Coast since the 1970's. There was what could be called an irruption in 1974-75 with whopping 4 birds showing up in California and Oregon. All of the accepted records south of Alaska fall into a window from late-Nov to Jan when taken together.
The average birder naturally wants to be able to count this Baikal Teal and to be countable it has to be real. Washington state has been getting a suspisciously large number of vagrant waterfowl in recent years including Bean Goose, Pink-footed Goose and Falcated Teal to name a few. And, not surprisingly, there have been heated and often rancorous discussions about countability. Is there a leaky aviary somewhere in Washington? or are the Hoquim Valley and Puget Sound just a very attractive place for real strays to winter?
This recently reported bird falls into the temporal window for accepted records suggesting that it could be a real vagrant, but I'd like to see an irruptive pattern along the West Coast before I make any concrete claims about its legitimacy.
Posted by mbalame at December 18, 2004 10:23 PM