ML645356517

Observation details

Nice adult male. A regular but rather rare hybrid combination with few SM records (though Ron and Leonie and others have had an individual of this hybrid combination here in previous winters, so presumably this is a returning bird). Some male NOSH can show facial crescents, and a couple birds in this plumage were present for comparison. The hybrid is smaller, finer-billed, has a cleaner and better-defined facial crescent lacking any smudging, and shows a different pattern to the chest and flanks: it is evenly buffy grading to rich rufous on the sides and with the fine dark mottling that male BWTE show on the chest, rather than the white chest of male shovelers or the largely whitish chest with some retained brown shown by imms or birds coming out of eclipse plumage.