The unsung beauty of the grey teal – a species often overlooked and neglected – shone from the mudflats.
A cluster of teals was grouped above the tideline at Cornelian Bay, sleeping with heads buried in the feathers of their backs, awaiting the tide to turn and feeding grounds to be flooded.
As the name suggests, grey teals lack the spectacular, often iridescent plumage of many of the ducks. In shallow waters they are overshadowed by a more common and popular small duck, the chestnut teal.
It takes the magnification of binoculars and the soft light of a rising or setting sun to bring the elegance of these little teals to life. As the tide advanced, the teals came into their own. They awoke from their slumber to the trickle and slurp of water invading the mud. Pools formed and the teals were soon ducking their heads to sieve morsels of plankton through flattened and slightly upturned bills.
The teals are identified by light grey feathers on their cheeks and under the chin, with just a clash of iridescence in the wings. These lighter feathers are in contrast with the overall mottled brown plumage of the female chestnut teal.
Grey teals tend to be found dabbling in muddy open shallows instead of the reed beds preferred by chestnut teals, with the male chestnut teal standing apart from both females and the grey teals by having a green head and chestnut wings and flanks.
Without ducks specifically in mind, I had gone to Cornelian Bay to check out the location’s listing in a guide to Hobart bird walks published by the Hobart City Council and Birdlife Tasmania.
Besides the teals, a quick scan over the tranquil waters and mudflats adjacent to the Boathouse restaurant also revealed Pacific black and wood ducks along with a large population of little black cormorants drying their wings on jetties associated with the shacks that line the shoreline to the south.
Across the expanse of mud, pied oystercatchers, a pair of white-faced herons and a lone pacific gull completed the picture.
Our water birds are always in the news at this time of year because of the controversial duck-hunting season, which runs to June 30.
The two teals are among five species that can be shot under licence. The others are the shelduck (also called the mountain duck), the black duck and wood duck.
I’m not a hunter myself but I have friends who are wildfowlers and they maintain they are a powerful force for the conservation of wetlands which benefit birds and mammals that are not hunted. On the other side, anti-hunting protesters argue apparently healthy duck numbers in Tasmania are falsely inflated by ducks escaping drought on the mainland.
Without getting in to the duck-hunting debate, I keep my head down like the grey teals, just happy to lose myself amid the mudflats.