TEAL OR NO TEAL

Late afternoon on Sunday I heard that a possible Blue-winged Teal or hybrid had been seen down at Cutt Mill. Later that evening I received a video clip off the bird, which did not look like a Blue-winged Teal, but I decided to go and have a look at it the next day out of interest.

The bird was still present and four observers were on it when I arrived. The bird looked more BWTish in the flesh but was not quite right. It certainly had the pale blue upper forewings but only the top part of it's head looked right and it only had a bit of a facial crescent on a rufous face. It's mantle and flanks seemed to show a BWT pattern but were pretty rufous and the pale spot towards the stern was faint. It had yellow legs, a dark bill and was unringed.

Desperate for the possibility of a Surrey tick, I toyed with the idea of this being some kind of sub-adult plumage which I was unfamiliar with but the rufous tone to this bird, taken with the other anomalies, led me to think that Cinnamon Teal was involved. Later on when I got home, a quick google image search led me to be pretty sure that the bird is a Blue-winged x Cinnamon Teal hybrid. A good image is here:
http://stubblefieldphoto.photoshelter.com/image/I00000ZjHbzJqcSQ

Unfortunately, the bird was distant in deep shade all of the time, didn't show really well so my pics are pretty bad but should give you some idea.

Two of the three Goosander which flew over Cutt Mill pond when I was there

Pyro had turned up at Cutt Mill and then we went to Thursley Common. Naturally, we did not see the Great Grey Shrike and it was irritating to see people flying a kite on Shrike Hill. Is the shape of things to come at our National Nature Reserves ?