Game Birds of the World

According to its scientific name, this is a "discordant duck," but most people would agree that it is highly attractive in voice as well as appearance. Although it is limited as a breeding bird to North America, during its long migrations it regularly reaches northern South America and has even straggled as far as Chile. The male in breeding plumage has a beautiful plum-tinted head with a crescent-shaped white patch on each cheek. In both sexes baby-blue anterior upper wing coverts are present in front of white-bordered iridescent green speculums on the secondaries. Blue-winged teal are late spring migrants, often having traveled all the way from Central America or even northern South America. They have little time to form pair bonds once they reach their breeding areas, so probably much of the courtship occurs en route. All of the more elaborate male displays found in, for example, green-winged teal, are lacking, indicating that these two groups of teal-sized birds evolved from rather different ancestors.

Females nest under sometimes rather low grassy or sedge cover, usually along the edges of prairie ponds or marshes. They lay surprisingly large clutches of 10–11 eggs. Incubation lasts 21–23 days, and the female rears her often-large brood on her own. The young fledge in about 40 days, with the female starting her own flightless period at about the time her young are themselves able to fly. By then, post-breeding males are starting to regain their flying abilities, and some may have already begun to leave their breeding areas.