First record of the Blue-winged teal Anas discors in the Maltese Islands

Abstract

In 2002, while undertaking a re-examination of the National Museum of Natural History collections, a nondescript female duck but with a distinct cerulean blue coloured upper wing coverts extending down to almost half of its wings was noted in the collections housed in the National Museum of Natural History in Mdina. On close examination the bird turned out to be a female Blue-winged Teal Anas discors, a species which to date had never been recorded from the Maltese Islands. The data label on the specimen showed that it was shot at Qawra on the 19th November 1980.