669 Featured Specimen

Common teal

Anas crecca

A small dabbling duck; breeding males show a chestnut head with a green facial patch and compact gray body.

Range

Habitat range map

Native range Occasional / Transient

Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)

Uses ponds, marshes, lakes, rivers, estuaries, and tidal flats, breeding around northern pools and wooded wetlands.

Males have a chestnut head with a green band, gray body, and yellow tail-side patch. Females are mottled brown with a green speculum.

It rises quickly and flies in tight, fast flocks. Feeding is usually done by picking at the water surface and shallows.

Seeds, aquatic plants, algae, small aquatic insects, crustaceans, and mollusks are eaten.

Ground nests are hidden in grass or shrubs. Females incubate, and ducklings begin feeding soon after hatching.

A wide-ranging migrant, it shifts among winter wetlands as water levels and feeding areas change.