It’s been some months since I’ve posted. Going back to school has been detrimental to my birding but only because I’ve let it. So I’m back in the field tomorrow. What prompted this? Well this morning Matt and I took Clementine for a walk to the wetlands behind our house and I saw my 100th life bird. I had hoped to have it by last new year but I didn’t and became disheartened… silly, I realize now, to make it a competition. And on that note, I’d like to invite myself to a challenge! 50 life birds by the end of 2010! I really never learn.
The life bird I saw this morning was a Cinnamon Teal (duck). It was actually a drake and his hen. I said “Look at that there red duck.” To which Matt replied, “Yes dear. I see the duck.” Then me: “It’s red!” Then he: “Yes, it is red.” Then we walked home with our small duck dog and I hopped online to look up red ducks.
A small, brightly colored duck, the Cinnamon Teal is found in ponds throughout the American West. Cinnamon Teals are the only ducks with separate breeding populations in North America and South America. Unlike most North American dabbling ducks, the Cinnamon Teal rarely breeds in the mid-continent prairie-parkland region. The female Cinnamon Teal builds her nest below matted dead stems of vegetation so it is completely concealed from all sides and from above. She approaches the nest through tunnels in the vegetation. Since we saw our Teals among the cattails in the wetland, I wonder if she is considering nesting there. I must do more spying.
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