While I'm pretty used to the idea that hybrids between two species of ducks can often look very much like a third species I'm not remotely confident that I'd be able to spot it happening if I saw one. It's lucky that the one hybrid duck I know I see regularly — the cinnamon teal x shoveler at Leighton Moss — looks like an Australian shoveler which has a zero possibility of being a wild vagrant.
There was a report yesterday of a possible Baikal teal at St Aiden's. Ten years ago it would have felt vanishingly unlikely to be a wild bird but these days there are one or two seen most Winters. I saw one on the other side of Yorkshire near Beverley a few years back.
Later in the day it was reported that it wasn't a Baikal teal after all and was most likely a wigeon x shoveler hybrid. I was intrigued, no idea what one of these might look like. So I looked up some examples and can entirely see how the confusion occurred now I've seen these photos. I wouldn't have predicted that head pattern in a million years.
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