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LOUISIANAS SPEEDY BLUEWING TEALS ly green winged left I the bluiwingcd teal Qiirninediilii diseors Is even faster and one of the swiftest of our ducks giving first place in the speed class only to the much larger canvasbaek For while it has been esti ¬ mated the blueWinged teal can fly at i rate of from eightytwo to ninetyeight miles an hour the canvasback is credited with being able to attain a flight of from eightynine to 111 miles an hour hourAlthough Although a summer breeder within the confines of LonLiiana thebluewinge V teal does soonly in smaii numlxTs when compared to the great flocks that come speeding through the state twice a year on their migrations It is the first of our winter visiting ducks to arrive in the fall and the last to go north in the spring and this fact is the reason for it being called Sarcelle antonniere and Sartelle jiirintaunierre by our Frenchspeaking gun ncrsviiieaningYautumn and spring teal tealWhile While the females jjreatly rcsenible each other and can be most easily told apart by the blue colored shoulder of the wings the drakes are markedly different in plumage The drake blue winged teal has a leadgray head with a purplish gloss almost black on top Tljti most distinguish ¬ ing mark is the large white crescent in front of each eye eyeThe The bluewinged teal is a duck of the fresh waters and almost wholly a surface feeder and grows sleek and fat after frequenting our marsh ¬ lands where the wild millet and other shallow water plants abound It is less able to endure the cold water the greenwinged teal revels in and this accounts for it not being found in such numbers during the middle of winter as in the late fill and spring Although large hosts of them pour through the state on their way to Mexico and Central and South America still many thousands of them re ¬ main with us all through the season and are to bo found lit the bags that contain teal even during our coldest snaps Due to ii dislike for cold it does not have the Arctic range of the greenwing breeding from Cen ¬ tral British Columbia Great Slave Lake and New ¬ foundland south to central Oregon northern Xe vada northern Mexico central Missouri southern Indiana northern Ohio western Xew York Bhode Island and Maine It also breeds in Louisiana Xoxv Jersey and Xorth Carolina CarolinaATTENTION ATTENTION HUNTERS The bluewinged is the duck par excellence as a shooting proposition When it flies it does so at tremendous speed and a scurrying flock as it sweeps from one pond or feeding ground to an otlier turning from side to side while in the air first showing the light nnderparts then the darker uhderparts in fascinating unison is a sight to he remembered And tin way they can spring front the water and into instant flight seems to belie Hie oftmade assertion that they are naturally tame and unsuspicious birds birdsThe The humming rush of a flock of bluewings over or by the blind is disconcerting to say the least ain speed is a snails pace in comparison The gunner must shoot and shoot fast when he is after these greasedligiitning pygmies of tin duck world If you jum i a teal your marksmanship is put to a severe test The mallard when aroused front feeding or resting lets out a squawk and climbs straight up for fifteen or more feet before straightening out but a teal simply clears grass tops and goes winging his way across the march like a shot If a crossing shot is made from a blinddo not forget the oldtime hunters advice you cant lead a bluewing teal too far farThe The third species of teal found in the state is a western duck known as the cinnamon teal Quer ilii Alula cyanoptera called by our local gunners a silver teal but it is not familiar to many There are several curious facts concerning the ciri vuunou teal As far as known it was first de ¬ scribed from a specimen taken in the nineteenth century in the faraway Straits of Magellan the extreme southern part of South America Its first recorded appearance in the United States was whijt a specimen was killed near the town of Opedousas La in the year 1849 1849The The male has head and neck chestnut the should ¬ ers of1 the wings are marked like the bluewinged teal with cobalt blue the speculum is green and the feet orange instead of yellow The female re ¬ sembles the female bluewing teal very much biit has a longer bill The Mississippi Kiver is its ex ¬ treme limit and sometimes flocks of from one to two hundred have been seen near the Jump Xew Orleans Picayune
