Blue-winged teal

I love photographing birds in spring.  They have shed their winter plumage and are now attired in their best dress clothes for mating.  You wouldn't know the species has sky-blue coverts on their wings with green primaries when they are on the water, but in flight, they are quite colourful.  You can see the wing colours below in the image I took a few years ago.

Male blue-winged teal in flight.

I have only ever photographed blue-winged teals in Alberta, never in BC, the province that I live in.  However, they most definitely reside there, as you can see from the map provided by the All About Birds website.

The teals are not diving ducks, but rather dabblers.  They tend to eat aquatic invertebrates while breeding and vegetative matter when overwintering in their southern ranges.  A close relative, the green-winged teal, is one I have photographed in BC but never in Alberta.  You can see the ones I photographed in Kelowna below.

Green-winged teal (male in flight - inset)

The only species of teal native to North America I haven't photographed (or seen, for that matter), is the cinnamon teal.  There are a few other species of teal but they are either accidentals, escapes, or rare for the continent.  I hope to capture some of these birds in photos next year when we do our southern tour of the US.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com