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bronco1
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bronco1

bronco1

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Here a little Teal Info.

Bluewing Teal

bwteal_drhenrs_log_m-1.jpgbwteal-1.jpg

Description

Male blue-winged teal have a slate gray head and neck, a black edged white crescent in front of the eyes and a blackish crown. The breast and sides are tan with dark brown speckles and there is a white spot on the side of the rump. Most of the upper wing coverts are blue-gray, the secondaries form an iridescent green speculum, and the underwing is whitish. The bill is black and the legs and feet are yellowish to orange. The male has a thin whistled tsee tsee uttered both in flight and when on water. Female blue-winged teal have a brownish-gray head with a darker crown and eye-stripe. The breast and sides are brown, the upper parts are olive brown, and the upper wing coverts are bluish, but less vibrant than the drake. The bill is gray-black and the legs and feet are dull yellow-brown. The female has a high-pitched squeak.

Breeding

Blue-winged teal breed primarily in the northern prairies and parklands of central North America. Their relative abundance generally increases from west to east and north to south within the prairie pothole region. Nesting habitat includes wetland areas within grasslands, such as shallow marshes, sloughs, flooded ditches, and temporary ponds. Females change breeding sites from year to year in response to changing wetland conditions and lay an average of 10 eggs.

Migrating and Wintering

Blue-winged teal are generally the first ducks south in the fall and the last north in the spring. They migrate from the prairie pothole region to wintering areas in Florida, the Caribbean Islands, the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, Mexico, and Central and South America. Wintering habitats are diverse, including mangrove swamps, fresh and brackish estuaries, and shallow wetlands. In the USA, the highest winter densities occur in southern Texas and peninsular Florida. Blue-winged teal are common in winter from Central America, the Caribbean and South America south to Peru and northeastern Brazil. They also stay regularly in small numbers in the Galapagos Islands, and are vagrants to Chile, southeastern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. (Scott and Carbonell, 1986)

Population

The 2001 breeding population survey for blue-winged teal was 5.8 million birds. This is a 23% decrease from last year's record estimate of 7.4 million, but above the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) goal of 4.7 million. Blue-winged teal have the highest annual mortality rate (reaching 65%) of all the dabbling ducks, possibly as a result of hunting and long over-ocean migration.

Food habits

Blue-winged teal dabble to feed on vegetative parts of aquatic plants (algae, duckweeds, pondweeds, etc.), seeds (sedges, pondweeds, grasses, etc.), and large amounts of aquatic invertebrates found in shallowly flooded wetlands.

Greenwing Teal

gwteal.jpgapr26bluewing2.jpg

(thats a bluewing in the middle between a Greenwing Drake and hen)

Description

Green-winged teal are the smallest of our North American ducks with a short neck and small bill. Male green-winged teal have a chestnut head with an iridescent green to purple patch extending from the eyes to the nape of the neck. The chest is pinkish-brown with black speckles, and the back, sides, and flanks are vermiculated gray, separated from the chest by a white bar. The wing coverts are brownish-gray with a green speculum. The bill is dark slate and the legs and feet are dark gray. Male has a distinctive high-pitched "preep-preep." Female green-winged teal are mottled brown with a dark brown line that extends from the bill through the eye. The bill is dark gray and the legs and feet are olive-gray to brownish-gray. Relatively silent but has a sharp, high "quack" when flushed.

Breeding

Green-winged teal, formerly Anas crecca carolinensis, breed from Alaska, across Canada, into the Maritime Provinces, south into central California, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. They prefer small and shallow permanent ponds near boreal forests and with an abundance of emergent vegetation, but also nest in prairie pothole country or in areas with dense emergent vegetation. Female green-winged teal lay an average of 8 to 9 eggs. The green-winged teal is currently split into the eurasian teal Anas crecca (which, breeds in the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilofs) and the green-winged teal (now Anas carolinensis).

Migrating and Wintering

Green-winged teal have an extensive wintering range, having been recorded as far north as Alaska and Newfoundland and as far south as northern South America. They are most abundant along the Mississippi Flyway, where the coastal marshes and rice fields of Louisiana and Texas provide ideal habitat. Tidal creeks and freshwater marshes associated with estuaries are favored over more saline or open-water habitats. Green-winged teal are common winter visitors to Central America and the northern Caribbean, and occasionally south to Colombia (Scott and Carbonell, 1986).

Population:

The 2001 breeding estimate was approximately 2.5 million birds, which is 39% above the long-term average.

Food habits:

Green-winged teal feed on seeds of sedges, smartweeds, pondweeds, and grasses, aquatic insects, mollusks, crustaceans and tadpoles found while foraging in and adjacent to mudflats or while dabbling in shallow water.

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bronco1

bronco1

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July 11, 2007, 9:38PM

Teal-only season to be Sept. 15-30

By SHANNON TOMPKINS

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Texas waterfowlers will see a 16-day teal-only hunting season from Sept. 15-30, thanks to this year's near-record estimated population of blue-winged teal.

The estimated breeding population index of blue-winged teal on the small ducks' main breeding grounds in the north-central United States and south-central prairie Canada was pegged at 6.7 million birds in a report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Federal waterfowl hunting frameworks allow Texas a 16-day teal-only season when the bluewing population index exceeds 4.7 million birds. If the bluewing population is 3.3 million to 4.6 million, current federal frameworks allow Texas a nine-day teal season.

This year, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission approved a proposal to set the teal season to run Sept. 15-30 if the bluewing population reached the 16-day threshold.

The estimate of 6.7 million bluewings is included in "Trends in Duck Breeding Populations, 1955-2007" released Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The report provides population estimates of North America's 10 major duck species and is compiled from data collected by annual aerial surveys on the ducks' main nesting grounds each May and early June.

Over the 53-year history of the annual spring breeding population survey, only two years have produced bluewing population estimates higher than the 2007 numbers.

The bluewing breeding population was estimated to be 7.4 million birds in 2000 and 7.15 million in 1999.

This year's bluewing population estimate is 14 percent higher than the 5.9 million birds of 2006 and 48 percent above the long-term (1955-2006) average.

Overall, this year's breeding population of the 10 duck species covered in the annual was 41.2 million birds, up 14 percent from the 2006 index of 36.2 million and 24 percent above the 1955-2006 average.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/outdoors/4961320.html

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crazy_cajun02

crazy_cajun02

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  Yeppers......How high is the trinity......I bet all this rain is clearing out some holes that were previously covered in hyacinth....I can't wait for the campout the night before the opener, minus the skeeters but there a minor problem.  Hopefully we can get some flounder gigging in while we wait.

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  • 3 weeks later...
crazy_cajun02

crazy_cajun02

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  Do you have a boat that will run shallow? If so you can hunt in the pace tract at the refuge but i wouldn't reccomend it for opening day, it's a zoo and the good spots will be taken by midnight.  any other day is good though. There is plenty of public land to hunt .....ie... out in the bay it just takes scouting to know where the birds are and where there not. 

Note: anything that lies below the mean(average) tide line and can be accessed by boat through a public waterway is considered public hunting land. Any blinds you see built in this area are public to anyone first come first serve. That doesn't mean the builder of the blind won't have anything to say if your in it though.  The teal tend to fly the shorelines of the bay.  I'm not giving any more info. than that. 

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crazy_cajun02

crazy_cajun02

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They are here, at least this bunch anyway. they migrate in and out so fast you never know which group is which.  I have seen decent groups in all my Hunting spots and a whole bunch down where i normally hunt the opener.  I haven't decided where i'm hunting yet .  But their not hard to find if you SCOUT.........

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