Green-winged teal (Anas crecca)
by Wanda Gorsuch

Common Names: Greenwing, common teal

If you see something small with a touch of green zip past you next time you are out in the field, it may have been a green-winged teal.  Greenwings are the smallest dabbling duck in North America and one of the fastest fliers.

Identification

Along with their small size (about 37cm in length), their coloration makes it easy to identify greenwings in the field.  Drakes have a cinnamon brown head with an obvious iridescent green crescent that runs through the eye over to a small crest at the back of the head.  Breast is pinkish with black spots.  North American greenwings have a short white stripe along the side of the body, below the front of the folded wing.  Back is grayish and there is a yellowish triangular patch on each side of the black undertail feathers.  As their name suggests, they have a green speculum.

Females are a much more drab mottled brown with a dark bill and forewing.  Chin and belly are white.  Their small size easily distinguishes them from other dabbling duck hens.

Distribution

In breeding season, greenwings can be found across most of Alaska, Canada and down in to the northern USA.  Unlike other dabbling ducks, it is primarily found in river deltas and forest wetlands and not the prairie pothole region, though there are a few found there.

When winter arrives, greewnwings are commonly found from southeast coastal Alaska, coastal and southern British Columbia and south in to the US and Mexico.  Also common in Cuba, and to a lesser extent in the Bahamas and Caribbean.  Generally greenwings retreat south through North America as shallow water starts to freeze.

Habitat

Greenwings are found in high densities around wooded ponds in deciduous parklands during breeding season.  They can also be found in boreal forests, arctic deltas and mixed prairie regions.  Generally, in the winter greenwings like shallow wetlands.  They seem to prefer coastal marshes and bayous and avoid open salt water.  Will also use brackish estuaries and agricultural areas, especially rice fields.

Food

Greenwings have a broad diet.  They will eat seeds from sedges, grasses and aquatic vegetation; aquatic insects and larvae, molluscs, and crustaceans. 

Reproduction

Most pair bonds are formed by March on the wintering grounds with the remainder made during migration and on the breeding grounds.  Nests are usually sited in sedge meadows, grasslands, brush thickets or woods near water.  Most nests are within 200m of water. 

Hens scrape out a nest bowl with their feet and lay their first egg before pulling in surrounding vegetation around and in to the nest bowl.  Down is added after the last egg has been laid.  6-9 eggs are usually laid.  It is generally believed only one egg a day is laid, usually in the early morning.

Only the hen incubates the eggs.  Incubation lasts for 20 – 23 days after the last egg has been laid.  During incubation, the hen spends 79% of the day on the nest, taking about 4 breaks that are around 80 minutes in length.

No information is currently available on how long it takes for ducklings to hatch out and when they leave the nest.  Ducklings are able to walk and feed themselves immediately after hatching.

Conservation and Management

Being a migrant on all the major flyways, it is the second most abundant duck taken by hunters in North America.  However, since the majority of its breeding areas are far from most human activity, population numbers have remained high.

Sources of Information

Bellrose, F.C.  1976.  Ducks, geese and swans of North America, 2^nd edition. Stackpole Books, Pennsylvania.

Johnsgard, P.A.  1978.  Ducks, geese, and swans of the world. University of Nebraska Press, Nebraska.

Johnson, K.  1995.  Green-winged teal (Anas crecca). In The Birds of North America, No. 193 (A. Poole and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, D.C.: The American Ornithologists’ Union.