Profile
In flight
Waterfowl
Cinnamon Teal
Spatula cyanoptera
- uncommon
- 40 km/h
- Least Concern
Brick-red drake with eyes like glowing embers. Western US specialty that looks airbrushed.
- Population
- Approximately 380,000 mature individuals globally (IUCN Red List assessment, decreasing trend)
- Habitat
- Shallow freshwater wetlands, marshes, and ponds, especially at edges of rushes, sedges, and reeds, plus streams, reservoirs, ditches, stock ponds, and temporary wetlands; winters also in agricultural wetlands, tidal estuaries, and mangrove swamps in Mexico. Andean subspecies occupy high-elevation lakes and marshes at roughly 3,500-4,600 m.
- Fun fact
- The Cinnamon Teal has two widely separated breeding populations - one in western North America and an entirely distinct one in South America (including high-Andean subspecies) - an unusual disjunct distribution for a duck. The oldest known individual was a banded female recovered in California in 2010 at at least 10 years, 6 months old.
- Range
- Western North America (western United States and extreme southwestern Canada) and a separate, disjunct population through South America (Andes and lowlands from Colombia to the Falkland Islands, including Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay). North American breeders winter in Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. IUCN describes an extremely large range (~34,000,000 km² breeding/resident; ~30,100,000 km² non-breeding).
- Diet
- Omnivorous dabbler; feeds mainly on aquatic plant seeds (especially sedges/Carex, bulrush, smartweed) plus aquatic insects (beetles, dragonflies), fly larvae, zooplankton, snails, and other mollusks, taken at or near the water surface.
- Size
- 0.41 m
- Wingspan
- 0.56 m
- Lifespan
- 10 years
