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Green-winged Teal. (. Anas crecca. ) Description. This is North America’s smallest dabbling duck. The brightly patterned drake has a green and reddish head and a white stripe along the shoulder. Their speculum is greenish towards the inner wing and black towards the outer wing.
Dec 27, 2023 · Bluewing teal have large, baby-blue wing patches; greenwing teal’s wings have an iridescent green patch; cinnamon teal also have blue wing-patches, but the drake is dressed in...
- Phil Bourjaily
Jun 28, 2023 · The green-winged teal is a pretty small duck in general, measuring only about 14 inches long and weighing less than one pound (NatureServe 2020). Both sexes have small bodies, short necks, and small heads, but the plumage of breeding drakes is very different from hens or eclipse drakes.
- Learn The Speculums!
- Structure
- Scapular Feathers
- Rump and Back Pattern
- Speculums
- Bare Parts
- Underwing
- Facial Pattern
- Summary of Key Characters
The following text will focus on various aspects of separating these birds in their less distinct juvenile and female plumages. Many of the plumage, bare part, and structural differences are subtle and must be covered in some detail. However, an easier aspect of the plumage well worth learning is that of the colourful speculums. In many cases, with...
Baikal Teal is not dissimilar in head and bill size to Eurasian and Green-winged Teal; the bill of Baikal Teal averages just over 1 mm longer* and is slightly thinner. The head is sometimes described as being squarer and more peaked at the rear crown ("fuller-naped and thicker-necked" - Eldridge and Harrop 1992). The most obvious structural differe...
The scapular feathers on any individual dabbling duck vary in shape and size to some extent, but certain overall differences are apparent when looked for. Juvenile and female Baikal Teals, broadly speaking, have feathers that are typically plain-centred and pointed. Green-winged and Eurasian Teals, on the other hand, have scapular feathers that are...
In female Baikal Teal the upper tail coverts have dark centres and paler buff fringing. This produces a dark 'band' between the rump and tail, the back and rump pattern consisting of relatively plain pale brownish-grey feathers (with faint paler fringing in young birds). In female Eurasian/Green-winged Teal the appearance of the back and rump is qu...
A useful aid to identification involves the shape, and pattern, of the speculum. In Green-winged and Eurasian Teals there are important age-, and sex-, related differences in the speculum pattern.
Female Baikal Teal has a dark grey bill, which is bluer-toned towards the base. Eurasian and Green-winged Teal have slate-coloured bills, usually with pinkish/orange/yellow to varying degrees at the base and some with dark spotting. It has been suggested that an average Green-winged Teal may have less colouring at the bill base than Eurasian (Milli...
Differences in underwing pattern between Baikal Teal and Green-winged/Eurasian Teal are slight. Differences are most obvious in fresh plumage (autumn) when the smaller underwing coverts are uniformly dark on Baikal Teal versus pale-fringed dark on Green-winged/Eurasian Teal. All three species show contrast with the rest of the paler underwing, part...
On adult female Baikal Teal a bright whiteloral spot, emphasised by a dark surround and bright white chin and throat, typifies the facial pattern. A white vertical spur (variable in its conspicuousness) extends up from the throat towards the eye. About 15% of females, according to Palmer; also have a dark line running from the gape and forming a br...
Adult male Green-winged Teal - extra feature
1. Narrower, parallel-sided upper border to speculum, which can be mostly orange-coloured (broader, mostly white and more wedge-shaped in Eurasian Teal)
Female/immature Green-winged Teal and Eurasian Teal
Features common to both: 1. Short-bodied and compact structure 2. Typically rather short, rounded, scapulars with pale internal barring 3. Back and rump with scaly appearance due to pale-fringed black feathering 4. Speculum broad and covering nearly half of inner wing; obvious at rest 5. Bill base variation of pinkish/orange/yellow 6. Small underwing coverts blackish with pale fringes when fresh (autumn), more uniform dark when worn (spring onwards) Features separating these two species: 1. N...
Female/immature Baikal Teal versus Green-winged Teal
1. Longer-bodied 2. Typically rather long pointed scapulars which are mostly plain-centred 3. Back and rump mostly plain brownish-grey 4. Speculum narrow covering less than 1/3 of inner wing, obviously thin at rest 5. Bill base bluish-grey 6. Small underwing coverts always wholly dark lacking obvious pale fringing 7. Particularly thin greater covert bar, wholly cinnamon-orange 8. White trailing edge often appears on solid block of white 9. Facial pattern with bright whitish loral spot usually...
Drake Green-winged Teal at Marshside, Merseyside by Adrian Dancy. Green-winged Teal (Anas carolinensis) is the American counterpart of our own Eurasian Teal (Anas crecca) and was formerly considered to be merely a race of the latter but in December 2000 it was given full specific status by the British Ornithologists' Union's Records Committee ...
Nov 18, 2020 · I took these photos of a dead drake and injured hen Green-winged Teal yesterday and have posted them as small images that can be clicked to view larger if you want to. The hen Green-winged Teal has damage to her right wing. Those feathers may grow back in time, she may survive being wing shot.
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Green wing Teal. There are three subspecies of this little duck, the European (Common) Teal (A. c. crecca), Aleutian Teal (A. c. nimia) and the American Green-winged Teal (A. c. carolinensis). The major differences in the subspecies, can be seen in the drakes.
