Birdland: Tiny But Mighty
The Green-winged Teal is the smallest dabbling duck in North America. They are fast, agile, buoyant flyers, and can take off straight from the water without having to first run across the surface. The males, like the one pictured here, have light gray bodies and cinnamon-colored heads with wide green swoops from their eyes to the back of their necks. (Females, by contrast, are brown and don’t have the green eye swoop.) This Green-winged Teal was photographed in Westerly Creek just east of Park Hill by Mark Silverstein.