Cinnamon Teal

Cinnamon Teal

(Anas cyanoptera)

Photographed at

Flamingo Hotel Aviary, Las Vegas, NV       Mar 2018

While many of our marsh ducks are found from coast to coast, the Cinnamon Teal is strictly western. The Cinnamon Teal is the only duck with separate breeding populations in North America and South America. Unlike most North American dabbling ducks, the Cinnamon Teal rarely breeds in the midcontinent prairie-parkland region. The female Cinnamon Teal often places her nest below matted, dead stems of vegetation so it is completely concealed on all sides and from above. She approaches the nest through tunnels in the vegetation.

A close relative of Blue-winged Teal (and sometimes hybridizing with it), the Cinnamon Teal has a slightly larger bill, better developed for straining food items out of the water. In some ways this species seems intermediate between Blue-winged Teal and Northern Shoveler.

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