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Green-winged Teal | Anas crecca
Wintertaling | Cerceta común
The Green-winged Teal is the smallest dabbling duck in the region, a compact little duck that flies in fast, agile flocks. Birds in the Caribbean are winter visitors from North America and belong to the American form, which is sometimes treated as a separate species. In Cuba it is called pato serrano.
Voice
The male gives a clear, fluty whistle, kreek, often repeated and swelling into a chorus in flocks; the female a high, sharp quack in a short, descending series.
Recording: Stanislas Wroza — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
31–39 cm, small and compact, with a short bill. The male has a chestnut head with a broad glossy green band from the eye to the nape, finely edged cream, a speckled creamy breast, a grey vermiculated body with a vertical white stripe on the side of the breast and a yellow patch under the tail. The female is mottled brown, with a dark eye-stripe, a pale streak along the side of the tail and a dark bill. In flight both sexes show a bright green speculum with a buff leading edge.
Confusion species
Blue-winged Teal Spatula discors is slightly larger, with a longer bill and pale blue forewings in flight; the female has a more obvious pale spot at the bill base. Males of the Eurasian form lack the vertical white stripe on the breast side but have a horizontal white stripe above the flank, and a more obvious pale border to the green head patch; such birds are exceptional in the region.
Habitat
Shallow marshes, muddy edges of lakes and ponds, lagoons, rice fields and flooded pasture. It feeds in very shallow water and on mud, mainly on the seeds of marsh plants and small invertebrates. It often keeps close to the shore or among vegetation.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A winter visitor to the north of the region: fairly common in Cuba, and elsewhere in the Bahamas, the other Greater Antilles and the Cayman Islands in smaller and varying numbers. Scarce and irregular in the Lesser Antilles, Trinidad and Tobago and the ABC islands. Breeds in northern North America and winters from the United States to Mexico and northern Central America; the Eurasian form breeds in northern Europe and Asia.
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On muddy shores and shallow marshes with some vegetation, where flocks often only become apparent when they flush; the male's vertical white breast stripe is visible even at a distance. Among flocks of Blue-winged Teals the shorter bill is the main distinguishing feature.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The North American population has increased in recent decades. In the Caribbean the species is hunted and shallow wetlands are being lost to drainage and development.
Scientific name
Anas crecca | Linnaeus, 1758
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Anas in that same work. Anas is the Latin word for 'duck'. crecca comes from kricka, the Swedish name for the bird, an imitation of the male's call. The specimen the first description was based on came from Sweden.