Eurasian Teal Anas crecca
Common migrant and winter visitor. Scarce in summer, and very scarce and localised as a breeding species.
Eurasian Teal: left/centre, Barton Pits October 20th 2010 (Graham Catley); right, Frampton Marsh January 7th 2019 (Phil Hyde).
The LBC Atlas put the wintering population of Teal at between 4,000 and 7,800 birds and the breeding population at around 25 pairs in the late 1980s. Few reports of confirmed breeding are received, and their true breeding status in Lincolnshire is difficult to ascertain. The wintering population is much better counted. The rolling five-year mean population over the period 2014/15 to 2018/19 reported on WeBS Online is around 8,600, split between The Wash (3,600), the Humber (2,900) and inland sites (2,100). The origins of wintering Teal in the county have been revealed by ringing studies with recoveries of Lincolnshire-ringed birds in Belarus (three), Belgium (one), Bulgaria (one), Estonia (two), Greece (one), Hungary (one), Italy (one), Morocco (one), Norway (five), Poland (four), Spain (one) and Turkey (one). Foreign-ringed birds have been recovered (mostly shot) in the county from Iceland in the north-west to far eastern Russia.
(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included September 2022)