I'm not sure what I got this morning. It came in with some sprigs, and I shot it. When I got to it, I thought gadwall. Well, it has wings like a gadwall, but a bill like a pintail. It's a hen, and that's about the only way I know how to describe it. I too a bunch of pictures and when I get to work tomorrow I'll see if I can get them to load and I'll post 'em. I took it to a buds house and he says it is a pintail-widgeon hybrid, and now he's calling it "Snyde's Pigeon". I think its a pintail-gadwall and I been calling it a "Grey-Tail". Either way, it's not beautiful like drake hybrids would be, but it is kinda cool. Whether any of these actually hyrbidize is beyond me, and frankly I guess it could go either way, but it was one dandy birthday present!!! And it is resting peacefully in the freezer waiting to make the road trip to immortality!!
The bill is blue without stripes.... it does have a little black spot on the end though, but no stripes at all!! Which at first had me thinking ringneck/?.... but the tail is fanned like a pintail. I also forgot to mention that the neck has a lighter shaded head the the rest of the back does. The head is alomost colored like a starling, just not as "speckled". The belly side is white (stained from mud, but white). The feet are a pale grey.
Be interesting to see the pictures. Pintail hens don't have blue bills....they are more grey to black.
I know this seems rather obvious, but is it a hen widgeon or young immature widgeon drake??? When you say wings of a gadwall, what exactly do you mean by that?
Well it's got really large white wing patches with a black bar alongside of it. It may well be something other than a "hybrid". I sure ain't claiming it to be one, I just can't identify it myself and my bud grew up in Stuttgart duck hunting all of his life and he ain't sure what it is either. I know being from Stuttgart doesn't make you an expert in ducks, but he's one of the most well versed guys that I personally know when it comes to them. I hope we can get the pictures to load. I took shots of it from every angle I could think of. And I called the bill "blue" and it is sort of grey looking. It's not nearly as "blue" as say a scaup(bluebill) or even a bull sprig for that matter. But it doesn't have the bar and edging in white and black like a ringneck either. As far as the size goes, it's a good bit bigger than a ringneck drake(about half again as big), but not hardly as big as any gadwall or pintails I've killed. I didn't think to put it to "scale" when I took the pics. It may well be an immature widgeon drake.... I sure don't know yet.
You been under the overpass shooting pigeons again? You know it has to have webbed feet before you can call it a duck. I know the duck hunting has been slow the last few years, but pigeon busting is a new low. :biggrin:
My youngest got up sick this morning, so I'm doin' the Dr. Dad thing today. My bro is gonna pick-up my camera card and see if he can post the pics if I don't get back tomorrow. He did some calling today and the consensus right now is that it is a gadwall-pintail hybrid. I'm still not sold that this is what it is yet, so I'll get the pics e-mailed around and get some expert opinions. Sorry for the delay, but "Scooter" comes first.....
I just noticed your post HFH!!! Ya'll see what I have to put up with?? This is supposed to be one of my good buddies!! But then again, "Buddy" is only half a word ain't it???
Well it's official.......................drum roll please.................................................................................................................................. An American Wigeon drake in "Eclipse Plumage". The theory is that he was a late hatch, likely from a hen that had her nests raided and re-bred, with a resulting late plumed drake. This is from a bro's-bro in TN who works for the DNR there. I'd never killed a widgeon before, so he's still something new to me, just not a hybrid. I still haven't figured out how to load these pictures here. We e-mailed them around and that was easy enough. But, since it's nothing special I guess it won't matter that much. Thanks for the input and sorry for the false alarm......... I guess maybe I need to get a Waterfowl ID book and carry it with me everyday. DUH!!!
Well, it;s official................. drum roll please......................................................................................................American Widgeion Drake in "Eclipse Plumage"! This is from a bro's-bro in TN at the DNR. The theory is that he's from a hen who's nest got raided and she re-bred resulting in a late plumed drake. Sorry for the false alarm. I guess I need to get a Waterfowl ID book and carry it with me. I'd never killed a Widgeon, so he's still something new for me. I e-mailed the pics around, but I still don't have them up where I can post them here. Since it ain't nothing unique I guess it doesn't really matter anyway.
I don't know what is going on with my 'puter, but I've tried three times to post here. Anyway, one more time and we'll see what happens........... It is now official (I think).............................................it is an American Widgeon Drake in "Eclipse Plumage". At least this is what a bro at the TN/DNR believes it to be. He seems to think it is from a hen that had her nest raided and she re-bred with a late hatch that left him less than fully dressed so to speak. Sorry for the false alarm. I guess I need to get a Waterfowl ID Book and carry it with me everyday!!!:smack: I still can't get these pics to come up on here, but since it's not a hybrid I guess it don't much matter. Anyway, I had never shot a Widgeon before, so it's still cool to me; but I sure wish he had been in full color.
Sheesh, ya only had to say it once.:biggrin: Are you using Photobucket or somewhere else to host the pics, or are you trying to post them straight from your computer? I always have to host them somewhere else and link them to here. Set ya up a photobucket account, or email them to me at home and I'll post them for you.
The hits just keep on coimin'!!! Sorry for the redundant posts. I put them up at work and I guess it didn't "recognize" me.... OOOOPPS! Yeah "B" I was trying to e-mail them straight thru. I've tried that before and I know it doesn't work, but I thought it was just my slow home 'puter. I'll do the photobucket thingy...... Sorry again.....
