Thursday, November 24, 2011

Cinnamon Teal

Cinnamon TealCinnamon Teal, Beaverton, Oregon, 8 November 2011 by Greg Gillson.

 

What does eBird tell us about the status and distribution of Cinnamon Teal in the Pacific NW?

You may be interested in visiting the eBird page on Cinnamon Teal in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

The quick-view weekly bar chart shows that Cinnamon Teal can be found somewhere in the Pacific NW all year, they are regular February through November, and most frequently observed April through June. Digging deeper, the 'Frequency' tab shows that nearly 10% of all birder's checklists report Cinnamon Teal the week starting May 15. The 'Abundance' graph shows two peaks in average number of birds per checklist--both in May and in August-September, after the young-of-the-year are out and about. Finally, the 'Average Count' when birds are detected, shows that when you do see Cinnamon Teal in the Pacific NW you can expect to see an average of about 20 individuals from mid-August to mid-September.

Looking now at the map of sightings, one can see that Cinnamon Teal are widely distributed in the Pacific NW, away from the mountains and extensive desert or grasslands lacking water. They are less common on the immediate coast. If you switch to the winter month of December, sightings are restricted to the valleys west of the Cascades with unfrozen water. Switch to the current month of the year and you can see all sightings within the last 30 days highlighted in orange rather than blue.

Click on any of those orange flags to find out details about the sighting and click on 'checklist' to see that observer's full list of species for that date and location.

Read a previous post on Cinnamon Teal.