How to Identify a Blue-winged Teal (Spatula discors)

• Head pattern: Male: distinct white crescent in front of the eye to the base of the bill on a gray face (spring/breeding plumage)
• Wing patch (speculum): Male and Female: pale blue wing patch, mostly hidden when swimming but distinctive in flight
• Body pattern: Male: cinnamon-buff body with dense dark spots throughout
• Body pattern: Female: mottled brown overall with a somewhat duller blue wing patch and often a lighter patch at the base of the bill
• Size compared with look-alikes: Female Blue-winged Teal and female Cinnamon Teal are very similar in plumage

In basic/eclipse plumage, Cinnamon Teal shows more warm-brown contour plumage, less patterned flanks, and a slightly longer, more spatulate bill than Blue-winged Teal; breeding male Blue-winged Teal's white facial crescent is absent in Cinnamon Teal The Cinnamon Teal page lists its own marks.

Fresh ponds and marshes; shallow freshwater marshes and ponds in open country in summer, also brackish marshes near the coast Widespread breeder across North America; winters more extensively in South America than most North American-breeding dabbling ducks

Male gives a single high-pitched whistled call; female gives a quack or short series of decrescendo quacks

Shoot from water level if you can, with the sun behind you, so head pattern and the wing patch show their true colors. Get one frame with the bird side-on and one as it stretches or flaps, which exposes the speculum and belly. Note who it is swimming with; ducks flock by species. The app names the likely species; confirm with the marks above, and check the female separately, since females of many ducks look alike.