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Blue-winged Teal

Blue-winged Teal

Spatula discors

Identify the Blue-winged Teal by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

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The Blue-winged Teal is a small North American dabbling duck named for the sky-blue patches on its forewing, visible in flight. Males have a slate-blue head with a bold white facial crescent, while females are mottled brown. It breeds from Alaska and Canada to the northern United States and winters south to the Caribbean, Central America and South America. It is among the first ducks to leave in autumn and the last to return in spring, and is a rare vagrant to Europe.

Did you know?

  • Some Blue-winged Teal fly long distances over open ocean on migration.
  • It was formerly placed in the genus Anas.

Voice

Call

About the species

Identification

A smallish teal (35–41 cm). The male has a blue-grey head with a clear white crescent in front of the eye, a brown, spotted body, a white patch at the base of the tail and a black rear. The forewing is pale blue and the speculum green, both obvious in flight; the legs are yellow. Females are mottled brown with a large dark bill and a broken eye-ring. It is told from Garganey by the male's facial crescent and from Teal by the blue forewing.

Family

Anatidae

Size

Large (crow)

Colours

brown, grey, white, blue

About the habitat

Calm, shallow wetlands – marshes, ponds, sloughs and slow streams – with dense emergent vegetation; in winter fresh, brackish and coastal marshes.

Diet

Mainly seeds and plant material, as well as aquatic insects, snails and crustaceans, taken by dabbling at the surface or just below in shallow water.

Behaviour

Usually seen in small groups dabbling along marsh edges and quiet water, tipping up to feed. Courtship begins in late winter. It nests on the ground in grassy cover near water, and the male leaves during incubation to moult. The male gives a short whistle, the female a soft quack. Some birds fly long distances over the open ocean on migration.

Sources

Photo: Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue-Winged Teal.jpg

Sound: Jonathon Jongsma, XC179673, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/179673

Text: Wikipedia (English) + GBIF regional observations + Wikipedia (Danish), CC BY-SA 4.0; GBIF occurrence data; Wikipedia: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-winged_teal

See also