Blue-winged Teal

I'm going to try to get back in the swing of posting.  Even though I haven't posted much lately, I have been out taking pictures of birds like normal and am pretty backed up with post processing.

Back on June 9th, I found this male Blue-winged Teal at South Quigley Lake on the auto tour of RNWR.  A few days later I saw a male and female in a pond along the Kiwa trail.

Blue-winged Teal (Cinnamon)

Update:
I've been informed that these are Cinnamon Teal, not Blue-winged Teal. I had forgotten that Cinnamon Teal and Blue-winged Teal have very similar wing coloration and immediately associated the pale blue and green coloring with the Blue-winged.
I've done some research on determining the difference between the females and eclipse males. It appears that Blue-winged Teal are cooler in overall coloring and have a hint of white feathers at the end of the bill. Since these ducks are very warm and show no white at the bill, I would have to agree that they are Cinnamon Teal. Cinnamon's would also be more likely given their large numbers at RNWR this Spring. Comments welcomed!

A trip around the auto loop at RNWR last Thursday didn't produce anything too special, but I did see about 15 Blue-winged Teal in the canal around marker 2. Though these birds are typically shown to have a Summer range throughout our area, they are somewhat rare.
I saw them at TRNWR last Spring for a bit, but then disappeared and I had only got one glimpse so far this year.
What's interesting about this sighting is that about half of them were juveniles, so they probably breed nearby, though there haven't been any recent reports of sitings of Blue-winged Teal at RNWR.
I only got a couple of shots of any of them flying and both were out of focus, but I decided to include one because it shows off the beautifully colored wing feathers that you only get a hint of when they are at rest, if you can see them at all.

Blue-winged Teal

Little by little I'm getting more confident with shooting flying birds. Especially bigger birds like Ducks, Geese and Herons. This pair of Blue-winged Teal flew overhead as I was shooting a Red-winged Blackbird along one of the service roads at TRNWR. One key is to use the AF-C setting on the camera. This allows the camera to adjust focus while holding down the shutter allowing many pictures to be taken quickly and letting the camera take care of the focus. Another key is overexposing a bit since the birds are usually against a bright sky. Having the darker trees in the background in these images helped with the exposure.