Blue & Green -winged Teals, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge

Blue-winged Teals landing in the Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin: 10/2/2011.

As most of you know who have followed my blog, I am a big fan of Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. During my last visit a month ago, I had a good outing identifying over 30 bird species and got some good photos to boot. Here is a list of the birds I identified: Starlings, Grackles, Black-capped Chickadees, Blue Jay, Palm Warbler, Yellow-rumped Myrtle, Robins, Song Sparrows, House Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Savannah Sparrow, Goldfinches, Red-tailed Hawk, Northern Bobwhite, White-breasted Nuthatch, Eastern Phoebe, Tennessee Warbler, Ring-billed Gulls, Great Blue Heron, Northern shovelers, Blue-winged Teals, Canada Geese, Mallards, Gadwalls, Double-crested Cormorants, Great Egrets, Green-winged Teals, Pied-billed Grebes, Sandhill Cranes, Greater Yellowlegs, White Pelicans, American Coots, Solitary Sandpipers, Hermit Thrush.

I loved the colorful rings in the water this female Blue-winged Teal created, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin: 10/2/2011.

Another female Blue-winged Teal, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin: 10/2/2011.

This post will feature the Blue-winged Teal (Above & Below) which is quite common in the Midwest summers - throughout much of Canada, the northern and the south central U.S. In the winter they will migrate to the southern Atlantic and Pacific coastal states as well as the Gulf of Mexico states.

Another female Blue-winged Teal, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin: 10/2/2011.

Another Teal that I don't see as often as the Blue-wings, is the Green-winged Teal (Below), which in the summer will be found in the same general areas as Blue-wings, but its range will spread further north in Canada and Alaska. In the winter, Green-wings can be found in the southern half of the U.S. and into Mexico.

A fuzzy pic of the Green-winged Teal, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin: 10/2/2011.

It seems I am never near enough to get a good picture of a Green-winged Teal. I have only seen them from afar, across a large pond / lake or flying overhead. So thus far (above) is the best photo I have managed of these birds. Green-wings are North America's smallest dabbling duck at 14" in length (there are a couple of diving ducks smaller - the Bufflehead being one), and have very distinctive coloring in breeding season. The males have a dark rufous head with a green eye patch that extends to the nape. The remainder of their body is grayish, with a buffy breast, a black and yellow tail, and a large green patch on its wings. The duck in the photo seems to be a young Teal growing its breeding plumage (from October through June), as the green eye patch is not quite prominent.