Daily Archives: Tuesday,December 18, 2012

Anas carolinensis: Green-winged Teal: The Race Rocks Taxonomy

Posted on by
Green-winged teals: Photo by Alex Fletcher

Green-winged teals: Photo by Alex Fletcher, Dec 12, 2014. Alex noted that they seem to come after the heavy rains as they did last year.

Below  is the first set of image taken of Anas carolinensis, the green-winged Teal at Race Rocks.

greenwingedteal1The male plumage shows up in this picture .

Ecoguardian Alex Fletcher took this first set of images of green-winged teal ducks at Race Rocks in December 2012. 

 

These ducks are common over on Vancouver Island but we have never recorded them out here before.

 

greenwingedteal2

Duck scratch

greenwingedteal4female-1

I suspect it was because there were many freshwater ponds on the lawns with the heavy rains recently on the island.

Classification:
Domain: Eukarya
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum :Vertebrata
Class: Aves
Order: Anseriformes
Family: Anatidae
Genus Anas
Species caroliniensis
Common Name: Green-winged teal.

 

 

 

 

 

On January 13, 2018 Ecoguardian Laas Parnell records  an new sighting in her log.

 

 

 

 

Return to the Race Rocks Taxonomy and Image Gallery Index:

This file is provided as part of a collaborative effort by the students, faculty, staff and volunteers of Lester B. Pearson College and website viewers on our remote cameras on the internet. Dec. 18, 2012– Alex Fletcher

Storm

Posted on by

 

Westerly swells near middle rock, Northern sea lions surfing.

Storm damage to roof of Science Centre building.

On Dec 16th in the afternoon a low pressure system moved in right over southern vancouver island bringing Easterly winds that exceeded 50 knots (measured from tower) and then switched 180 degrees, within a few hours over midnight, to Westerly winds toping out also over 50 knots the morning of Dec 17th.  As shown above atmospheric pressure reached a low of below 980 hPa, one of the lowest readings i have seen out here.

Flying sea lion

The westerly winds brought several dumps of hail and rain and created good surf conditions for Northern sealions to catch a few waves. Several shingles were blown off the Science Centre building on both the  South and North sides of the roof.

Fresh snow on vancouver island behind sea lions, gulls and cormorants on West and Middle rocks.