Blue Winged Teal Hens

Title

Blue Winged Teal Hens

Artist

Norman Johnson

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

A pair of blue winged teal hens swim beside the Lake Apopka North Shore Wildlife Drive in Orange County, Florida.

The blue wiinged teals (anas discors) encompass all of North America except for western and northern Alaska, the northern Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and the northeastern part of Canada. They are rare in the desert southwest and the west coast of the United States. They winter throughout the southern United States down through Central America and into South America as far as Central Chile and Brazil. They fly in flocks from north to south during the winter migration, sometimes flying long distances over open ocean. They occasionaly show up in Europe.

Blue winged teals are a small dabbling duck measuring between 14.2" to 16.1" with a wingspan of 22" to s4.4." Adult males have a greying head with a white facial crescent and a light brown body with a white patch near its black tail. Adult females are a mottled brown with a whitish area at the base of their bill. Both sexes have sky blue coverts, the contour feathers that cover the flight feathers at the leading edges of the wings, and a green speculum, or secondary flight feathers which are at the inner back of the wings. Males have dark speckling on the breast. Their heads are rounded and their legs are yellow.

Feeding on mud flats, fields, or shallow water with floating of shallowly submerged vegetation, blue winged teals eat mainly plant matter. They also feed on mollusks and aquatic animal life.

Blue winged teals prefer the shoreline rather than open water and calm or sluggish water more than fast. You will find them in inland marshes, lake, ponds, pools, and shallow streams with a lot of vegetation and also salt marsh meadows. The usually nest near open water and breed in marshes and ponds.

Uploaded

February 12th, 2020

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