Blue-Winged Teal
Brianna Koshinski
Description
Males have a slate gray head and neck, a black-edged white crescent in front of the eyes and a blackish crown. The breast and sides are tan with dark brown speckles and there is a white spot on the side of the rump. Most of the upper wing coverts are blue-gray, the secondaries form an iridescent green speculum and the underwing is whitish. The bill is black and the legs and feet are yellowish to orange. Females have a brownish-gray head with a darker crown and eye stripe. The breast and sides are brown, the upper parts are olive brown, and the upper wing coverts are bluish, but less vibrant than the drake. The bill is gray-black and the legs and feet are dull yellow-brown. The latin word for blue-winged teal is Anas discors.
Breeding
Blue- Winged Teal breed primarily in the northern prairies and parkland of Central North America. Their relative abundance generally increases from west to east and north to south within the Prairie Pothole Region. Nesting habitat includes wetland areas withing grasslands, such as shallow marshes, sloughs, flooded ditches and temporary ponds. Females change breeding sites from year to year in response to changing wetland conditions and lay an average of 10 eggs.
Blue-Winged Teal
This is a female blue-winged teal. They have a brownish-gray head that has a darker crown and eye strip. They make a high-pitched squeak.
Blue-Winged Teal
A male blue-winged teal has the gray head and neck. They make a thin whistled "tsee tsee" when in flight and on the water.
Blue-Winged Teal
The blue-winged teal's are in flight to migrate towards the wintering areas in either Florida, the Caribbean islands, and the gulf coast of Texas and Louisiana.
Migrating and Wintering
Blue-winged teal are generally the first ducks south in the fall and the last north in the spring. They usually migrate from the Prairie Pothole Region to wintering areas in Florida, the Caribbean Islands, the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Mexico and Central and South America. Their wintering habitats are diverse, including mangrove swamps, fresh and brackish estuaries and shallow wetlands. In the United States, their highest winter densities occur in southern Texas and peninsular Florida. Blue-winged teal are more common in winter from Central America, the Caribbean and South America south to Peru and northeastern Brazil. They also stay regularly in small numbers in the Galapagos Islands and are vagrants to Chile, southeastern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.
Population
Since 1955, blue-winged teal populations have ranged from 2.8 million to 7.4 million. Their numbers have increased in recent years, due to the favorable prairie wetland conditions. This has resulted in an average population of 6 million during the past 10 year. They have the highest annual mortality rate of all the dabbling ducks, usually resulting in hunting and long over-ocean migration.
Food Habits
Blue-winged teal feed on the vegetative parts of aquatic plants, like algae, duckweeds, and pondweeds, etc, they also eat seeds, like grass, and large amounts of aquatic invertebrates found in shallowly flooded wetlands.