Cinnamon Teal, Anas cyonoptera


Cinnamon Teal
Above and the two below, the striking male Cinnamon Teal in breeding plumage. These birds are year-round residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, not as common as our other resident ducks.
 

Cinnamon Teal

Cinnamon Teal


Cinnamon Teal
Four male Cinnamon Teal courting a single female.

Cinnamon Teal
Above, a pair of Cinnamon Teal in breeding plumage; below, a female with a downy chick. The female is hard to distinguish from the female Blue-winged Teal; the two species are closely related, despite the very different appearance of the breeding plumage males. One subtle distinction between the females is that the Blue-winged has a white patch behind the bill, where Cinnamons tend to be solid brown, as in the image above.


Cinnamon Teal

Cinnamon Teal
Above and below, immature male Cinnamon Teal, possibly two pictures of the same duck. The yellow/orange rather than red eye indicates that the bird is immature. Note the color pattern on the wing, pale blue, white, and iridescent green, which matches the pattern found on the wing of the otherwise dissimilar male Blue-winged Teal.

Cinnamon Teal

Cinnamon Teal
Above, a male Cinnamon Teal in eclipse, the more subdued plumage which male ducks adopt for a month or so while they molt their flight feathers all at once at the end of the nesting season, rendering them flightless and therefore vulnerable to predators. Most bird species molt flight feathers gradually over an extended period and remain able to fly.  The red eye marks this bird as a male despite the female-type plumage.