208 RIVER AND POND DUCKS 



The nest of the Blue-wing exhibits a wide diversity of construction. 

 It is usually a neat, basket-like structure composed of fine, soft, dead 

 grass, lined with down and placed in a hollow in the ground with the 

 top of the nest flush with the surface. It is seldom far from water and is 

 generally well concealed in the long prairie grass growing in the vicinity 

 of the sloughs and ponds. From 6 to 15 eggs are laid, but ordinarily from 

 10 to 12 comprise the set. The eggs vary in colour; they are dull white, 

 creamy white, or pale olive white, and are indistinguishable from those 

 of the other teals. The average size is 1.83 by 1.31 inches. The period of 

 incubation is from 21 to 23 days and is performed by the female alone 

 as the male deserts her once incubation is well started. During the egg- 

 laying period and the early days of incubation the male usually waits 

 for the female on some nearby marsh or pothole. He establishes regular 

 waiting spots, on boulders, logs, or muskrat houses, or he will be found 

 standing or sitting hour after hour along the shore. In returning to her 

 nest, the cautious little mother will generally alight at a distance and 

 sneak through the grass and weeds towards it rather than advertise its 

 location by a direct approach. Being late migrants in the spring, these 

 teals are late breeders and the young develop exceptionally rapidly in 

 preparation for their migration in the early autumn; during August the 

 wing and tail feathers are acquired and before the end of that month 

 the young birds are well developed and, as a rule, by the time they are 

 six weeks old they have begun to fly. 



Bent (1923) says: "The young are guarded with tender care by one 

 of the most devoted of mothers; when surprised with her brood of young 

 she resorts to all the arts and strategies known to anxious bird mothers 

 to draw the intruder away from her brood or to distract his attention, 

 utterly regardless of her own safety, while the young have time to hide 

 or escape to a place of safety. The young are experts at hiding, even in 

 open situations, where they squat flat on the ground and vanish; but they 

 usually run or swim in among tall grass or reeds, where it is almost 

 useless to look for them. All through the remainder of the summer, until 

 they are able to fly, she remains with them, teaching them where to find 

 the choicest foods and how to escape from their numerous enemies; they 

 learn to know her warning calls, when to run and when to hide, and by 

 the end of the summer they are ready to gathei into flocks for the fall 

 migration." 



The Blue-wing is strictly a surface feeder and finds its sustenance in 

 the shallow muddy ponds, creeks, and ditches, and along the reedy shores 

 of lakes and sloughs. Unlike most of the other Surface-feeding Ducks it 

 rarely "tips," tail and feet uppermost, when 

 feeding, but more often, merely reaches down 

 to the extent of its head and neck in the more 

 shallow places. It is very fond of wild rice, 

 and occasionally visits the stubble fields of 

 barley and wheat to glean what it can be of the fallen grain. It seems to 

 be somewhat more of an animal feeder than the Green-wing, for whereas 

 the vegetable food of that species averages about nine-tenths of its diet, 



