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Fun Facts
Did You Know?
Blue-winged teal — Similar size, but the blue-winged teal shows a large chalky-blue patch on the upper wing visible in flight, which the green-wing does not have. The male blue-wing has a gray head with a white facial crescent, completely different from the cinnamon head of the male green-wing. In flight the large blue wing patch is the fastest separator — if it's blue, it's a blue-wing
If This Animal Could Talk...
"Watch closely, respect my space, and let my habitat explain the rest of the story."
The green-winged teal (Anas crecca) is the smallest dabbling duck in North America and would like you to know it does not consider this a limitation. A flock of green-wings moving across a North Louisiana marsh in November looks like someone threw a handful of birds into the air and they all agreed — instantaneously, without apparent communication — to change direction at the same moment. Tight, fast, twisting, the whole flock banking and turning in unison at speeds that make pintails look casual.
They can hit 60 miles per hour. A flock of green-wings working a marsh edge looks like it's moving three times faster than that because they're small and there are a lot of them and they do not fly in straight lines.
A Few More Facts
How they hunt and forage: Seeds make up 80 to 90 percent of the green-wing's winter diet — aquatic plant seeds, grass seeds, sedge seeds, whatever is available in the shallow muddy margins where they prefer to feed. They are surface feeders and tip-up feeders rather than divers, picking food from the water surface and the exposed mud of tidal flats and wet margins with their small bills. Green-winged teal use tidal mudflats more than any other duck species — a behavioral preference that is consistent across their range and reflects the productivity of exposed mud as a feeding surface. The moist soil management units at North Louisiana WMAs, when drawn down to expose mudflat, attract green-wings specifically to the exposed areas where seeds and invertebrates are accessible at the surface. A partially drawn-down impoundment with mud margins and a few inches of water over the flat is exactly what they're looking for.
Live birth or eggs? no
When young are born: See the detailed species sections below.
What Is the Green-Winged Teal Often Confused With?
The drake in breeding plumage is one of the more precisely patterned small ducks in North America, which is easy to miss because the bird is so small that the pattern requires binoculars to appreciate from any distance. The head is rich cinnamon-chestnut with an iridescent green swoop that runs from just in front of the eye back to the nape — a wide stripe that glows in direct light and disappears in flat light, which is why the same bird can look completely different depending on the angle of the sun. The breast is buff-tan with small dark spots. The flanks are gray with black vermiculation.
Drag the handle left and right to compare Green-Winged Teal side by side with the species it gets mistaken for most.
Open the visual comparison tool
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Accessibility
Accessibility
Green-winged teal are among the most accessible winter waterfowl for observation from WMA levee roads and refuge impoundment access points, because they use the shallow edges of managed units that are often visible from vehicles. A drawn-down moist soil unit with mud margins and shallow water can hold thousands of green-wings visible from a levee road in December. Binoculars bring the drake's plumage detail into focus — the green ear stripe, the cinnamon head, the yellow tail-light — at distances that would leave the identification uncertain without them.
The male green-wing's whistle is distinctive and carries well in quiet conditions — cleaner and higher-pitched than most duck sounds, easy to separate from the background quacking of mallards and gadwalls after you've heard it a few times. A large feeding concentration produces a continuous background of these whistles audible from a levee road before the birds are individually visible. Play the call on the Merlin app before your first trip and you will recognize it the moment you step out of the truck.
For visitors with limited vision, a companion who can recognize the call can confirm green-wing presence from the road before any visual assessment is attempted — and in a good winter concentration, the call alone tells you there are a lot of them before you see a single bird.
Pull up to a levee road at a managed impoundment at first light in December, cut the engine, and listen. If there are green-wings in the unit, you will hear that background whistle before you see a single bird. Give your eyes a minute to adjust. By the time you've glassed the far end of the unit, there will be teal at the mud margin ten feet below the levee that were there the whole time.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Green-Winged Teal live in North Louisiana?
Yes. A flock of green-wings moving across a North Louisiana marsh in November looks like someone threw a handful of birds into the air and they all agreed — instantaneously, without apparent communication — to change direction at the same moment. They are everywhere in North Louisiana from October through March, in concentrations that can reach thousands of birds on a good winter marsh, and most people still can't pick them out of a mixed flock until a bird happens to land within 20 feet of them and stay still for three consecutive seconds.
If there is a small duck in the flock that keeps looking like it should be farther away than it is because it reads as smaller than its actual distance would suggest, that is a teal, and in North Louisiana from October through March it is almost certainly a green-wing.
How do you identify Green-Winged Teal?
The drake in breeding plumage is one of the more precisely patterned small ducks in North America, which is easy to miss because the bird is so small that the pattern requires binoculars to appreciate from any distance
What does Green-Winged Teal eat?
Seeds make up 80 to 90 percent of the green-wing's winter diet — aquatic plant seeds, grass seeds, sedge seeds, whatever is available in the shallow muddy margins where they prefer to feed. They are surface feeders and tip-up feeders rather than divers, picking food from the water surface and the exposed mud of tidal flats and wet margins with their small bills
Is Green-Winged Teal dangerous to people?
Nesting
Green-winged teal nest primarily in boreal Canada and Alaska, well north of Louisiana. They are among the last waterfowl to leave for the breeding grounds in spring — pairs typically depart Louisiana in late February and March, with most birds gone by April. They breed in grassland and brushy habitat near freshwater, nesting on the ground in dense vegetation usually within 700 feet of water. Clutch size is 6 to 11 cream to pale buff eggs, incubated by the female for 20 to 24 days. The male departs during incubation. Ducklings fledge at around 35 days.
Pair bonds form during winter on the wintering grounds, which means the paired green-wings working the managed impoundments at Bodcau or Boeuf in January and February have already committed to this year's nesting partnership. The courtship display — male whistling, posturing close to the female, head-pumping with the green ear stripe flashing in the light — is visible in winter flocks in Louisiana before the birds leave. Pay attention to paired birds in January and February and you'll see the beginning of a nesting season that won't conclude until June in boreal Canada.
The Eurasian subspecies and the American form are sometimes treated as separate species by different authorities. The British Ornithological Union splits them. The American Ornithological Society currently does not. Check the latest taxonomy before submitting rare bird reports of Eurasian green-wings in Louisiana, because the status of what you're reporting depends on which authority your platform follows.
