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- Did you know the wetlands ducks call home are disappearing? Learn how you can help conserve wetlands for waterfowl, other wildlife and people to enjoy!
- How do wetlands work?
- More ducks and other wetland wildlife!
- Top 10 Wetland Facts
- Migration Maps
You're a Blue-winged teal!
You were banded at Frank Lake near High River, Alberta one late summer day just after you learned to fly.
Your parents had arrived in Alberta in the spring after a long migration from their wintering home far to the south. After mating, your mother laid you and nine other eggs in a nest hidden by prairie grasses. Your mom chose a spot near a wetland, so she could feed every day on the rich invertebrates and plant seeds she liked to eat during nesting.
Once you had grown your flight feathers, it was time to migrate south to the wetlands along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Texas, U.S.A. Since you are a small duck, your family was one of the first species to fly south when the weather turned cold. Some blue-winged teal fly all the way to Mexico and South American countries like Venezuela. There, people speak Spanish, and call you a "pato" (which means duck).
Download certificate!
Download a customized certificate (PDF, 1.3 MB) with your name to show your friends and family!
Banding or marking ducks helps scientists learn more about them and what they need to survive. Protecting wetlands is one way to help ducks.
Fast Facts:
- Creamy white eggs.
- One of the first waterfowl species to migrate south in the fall.
- Dabbling duck (eats at water surface or by “tipping up”).
- The second most common duck in North America however its population drops whenever there are long periods of drought on the prairies, which dry up some of the small pothole wetlands they depend on during nesting.
