Baikal Teal

Overview

Baikal Teal: Small dabbling duck, head pattern of pale brown, green, white, and black. Pink breast has dark spots, flanks are gray bordered with vertical white stripes, scapulars are brown, black, and white. Wing speculum is green with buff upper and white lower border. Black undertail coverts.

Range and Habitat

Baikal Teal: Occurs in Alaska and in northern west coast states; nests near swampy tundra areas. Spends winters on freshwater lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and farmlands, often roosting on water during the day and feeding in fields at night.

INTERESTING FACTS

At night, Baikal Teals forage for acorns in the woods and grains and seeds by roadways. Although believed to be the most numerous duck in eastern Asia in the 1940s, excessive hunting reduced the population to an estimated 40,000 in the 1980s. Over the last decade, populations of Baikal teal have increased dramatically. Molecular and behavioral data suggests that it has no close relatives among living ducks and should be placed in a distinct genus; it is possibly closest to such species as the Garganey and the Northern Shoveler. A group of teal has many collective nouns, including a "coil", "dopping", "knob", "paddling", and "spring" of teal.