Green-Winged Teal #73

Reports of a green-winged teal at Lunt Meadows these past few days had us heading over there today as we've not been for a little while. The weather was fabulous - about 3 degrees but sunny and virtually no wind at all - perfect. 
We had a lovely couple of hours wandering around the reserve, talking to the warden and waiting for the teal to wake up. It only popped it's head up twice whilst we were watching. 
I had not even heard of this bird prior to it arriving and apparently it's a North American bird that turns up in the UK in quite low numbers each year. Very similar in appearance to our own Eurasian teal, it can be identified by the vertical white stripe on its wing instead of a more horizontal one on the more common teals we see all the time. 
Nice to be still adding to my annual tally at this stage of the year. 
I'm still hoping that the waxwings turn up somewhere close to us so we can go and see them for the first time too.