Blue- Winged Teal

(Anas discors)

The Blue-winged Teal is approximately 35 to 40 cm in length and has a wingspan of 60 to 80 cm.  The Blue-winged Teal is a small duck and its twisting turning flight gives the illusion of great speed.

The adult male has a blackish brown forehead and crown; a large white crescent in front of its eyes; the sides of its head and neck are a lead gray glossed with a faint purple sheen. The male’s upperparts are dark brown and underparts are brown evenly spotted or barred with black; its wings coverts are a pale blue separated from the green speculum by a bar of white. The undertail coverts are black with a patch of white on either side of the tail.

The adult female is mainly dark brown with feathers bordered in buff or white. She is much paler underneath than the male with a much reduced white bar separating the blue and green on her wings.

Blue-winged Teals are more vocal than most ducks. The males have a whistling peep while hens utter a low quack; their high-pitched peeping and nasal quacking is often heard in the spring and to a lesser extent in the fall.

Like other surface feeding ducks, it feeds on aquatic plants, seeds, and larvae. Unlike most, however, it does not normally feed in grain fields.

The female builds a basket-like nest, well concealed in dense grass and close to the waters edge. The nests consists of a hollow lined with dry grass which is then lined with down. She usually lays between nine and twelve dull white eggs. The female tends the young, leading them to water soon after they hatch. Within six to seven weeks the young can fly and become independent.

The Blue-winged Teal lives mostly in freshwater wetlands like those just outside of Wadena. At the Wetlands, you are most likely to see the Blue-winged Teal on Cattail or Mallard Trail. Or even in the open water viewable from the Jesmer Marsh Overlook.