There’s a semi-old adage that claims if one thing walks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s in all probability a duck. It was derived from a poem by James Whitcomb Riley, who died in 1916. However the notion, known as the Duck Check, reached its heyday within the Nineteen Fifties when it grew to become a solution to smear somebody as a communist with out having any precise proof.
The phrase got here to thoughts the opposite day whereas I used to be strolling alongside the sting of the moat at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park, and heard what may solely be described as wussy little flute-y sounds coming from a number of locations within the mangroves. It took me some time to recollect what they have been – a blue-winged teal.
If a fowl appears to be like like a duck, swims like a duck, however doesn’t quack like a duck, is it nonetheless a duck?
We, as a species, have realized these days that the assorted languages of birds are much more nuanced and communicative than we’ve got given them credit score for. Whereas we hear what we predict are two equivalent notes, they could possibly be listening to two vastly various things with two vastly completely different meanings, resembling “Hey, I’m over right here,” and “Cautious, there’s an eagle circling up there.”
To not be useless, however I assumed all of the duck chatter was about me. Blue-winged teal are hunted fairly closely, and even in a spot just like the Keys, the place it could be unlawful to hunt them, they’re justifiably cautious of individuals.
I may see the geese via the mangroves, however I couldn’t get a shot of any of them with out lots of leafy inexperienced within the periphery, giving the photographs, after I chimped them on the again of the digicam, a sure sense of furtiveness. So I walked till I discovered a low spot within the mangroves and waited. Finally a quintet of them – three males and two females – swam into view.
They didn’t appear to thoughts me till I lifted my binoculars, then all of them did neat little pivots, the webbed footwork that propelled them and adjusted their route hidden beneath the water. After I raised my digicam, which to them may need appeared like lifting a gun, they flew 20 or 30 yards out of body and landed.
The identify duck really comes from the verb duck, as in to duck or dive. The identify teal means to breed or have a brood. The colour teal is called after the green-winged teal, a species during which the males have a daring inexperienced comma on all sides of their face, and each women and men have equally hued patches on the trailing edges of their wings, which is most obvious in flight.
Blue-winged teal are carefully associated to the green-winged. They too have inexperienced patches on the trailing edges of their wings, however in addition they have a lot greater powder-blue patches on the main edges of their wings, that are dramatic once they fly. Therefore their frequent identify.
The blue-winged teal’s Latin identify is Spatula discors. Spatula means “spoon formed” and doubtless derives from their cousin species, the northern shoveler, which has a shovel-shaped invoice, with spoons and shovels each being concave instruments. Discors means battle. In accordance with “The Dictionary of Birds of the USA,” the thought of battle is “regarded as a reference to the decision, however disagreement exists on this derivation as a result of the decision of this teal is just not loud or disagreeable.” (Little doubt “not loud or disagreeable” is only a well mannered method of claiming “wussy.”)
The dictionary means that the thought of a conflicted sounding noise could derive from the sounds a blue-winged teal makes when it takes off. Blue-winged teal are dabbling geese, although, which suggests they’ve proportionally smaller toes than diving geese, that means dabbling geese can merely leap into the air from the floor of the water to take flight, the place diving geese must leap up after which run throughout the floor of the water to take flight. On the size of duck-taking-off noises, dabbling geese, like blue-winged teals, are typically on the quieter finish.
Then once more, the Latin identify for the species, which solely breeds in North America, was given by the famed taxonomist Carl Linnaeus in 1766, who described it from a lifeless specimen, so he in all probability didn’t know a lot about how they moved or sounded.
And that’s in all probability sufficient about names that got 1 / 4 of a millennium in the past in a international language. Although I ought to level out that Marc Catesby, an elder of Carl Linnaeus who really noticed the species alive sooner or later United States, known as the species the white-faced teal, which to my thoughts is a stronger identify.
Male blue-winged teals, also called drakes, have a dramatic white crescent, like a South Carolina moon, on all sides of their black head. It’s a discipline mark you’ll be able to see each when the fowl is in flight and when it’s not. In addition they have these stunning coppery, densely noticed flanks that come off trying nearly like leopard print however, you recognize, elegant.
Feminine blue-winged teals, also called hens, just like the females of most sexually dimorphic species, have extra refined plumage, typically brown and streaky and fewer attention-drawing. Which is smart, as they’re much less expendable than the males, who will defend their nesting territory, however not contribute a lot different effort to the elevating of their offspring.
Again to the Duck Check. I didn’t do it standing on the facet of the moat, however after I obtained dwelling I pulled up the Sibley app on my cellphone. The primary audio recording on there was the male, with the identical feeble sounding peeps. The second was known as the “male chux” which, when you cocked your head proper, may nearly sound one thing like a quack.
However the third recording was of the feminine, and it seemed like a decrease model of the male chux at first, however then rolled into one thing that seemed like full-on quacking. Thus passing the Duck Check. Although there may be nonetheless no proof they’re communists.