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Birds
Blue-winged teal
Blue-winged teal · Spatula discors
Blue-winged teal are striking in flight thanks to their distinctive blue wingbeats and are masters of hiding in shallow, vegetated shore zones.
Fact file
- Size
- Around 40 cm long, weighing 350 to 400 grams
- Males and females
- Males in breeding plumage with a white facial crescent, females more inconspicuous
- Sounds
- Soft chattering and high whistling calls
- Diet
- Plant material, seeds, small aquatic insects
- Offspring
- 6 to 14 chicks hatch after 24 days of incubation
How to identify Blue-winged teal
Blue-winged teal are compact ducks with a slender silhouette. During the mating season the plumage of the males shows a distinctive white crescent in front of the eye, grey-brown body feathers and conspicuously pale blue wing coverts that immediately catch the eye in flight. Females have browner patterned plumage, also with blue wings, but without the white facial crescent.
Adults are about 40 centimetres long and weigh on average 350 grams. In flocks, blue-winged teal are particularly easy to recognise in flight: the blue wing coverts contrast with the green speculum on the wing and a white patch near the hindwings. Warning chattering or whistling calls can be heard from both sexes.
More in the app
With Wildful Stories+ you also get in the app:
- general viewing tips
Where Blue-winged teal live
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