400 
FOREST AND STREAM 
September, 1921 
Blue-winged teal (male) 
Green-winged teal (male and 
Cinnamon teal (male) 
TEAL ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND 
THEIR SMALL SIZE AND RAPID FLIGHT RENDER THEM DIFFICULT MARKS 
FOR THE GUNNER AND PROVIDE RARE SPORT ON EARLY SHOOTING DAYS 
T HERE are three varieties of teal 
common to North America — the 
blue-winged teal, the green-winged 
teal and the cinnamon teal, all named 
from their color-markings, the former 
two from the wings, the latter from 
the prevailing color of the bird. They 
are among the smallest of our water- 
fowl. The cinnamon teal is the larg- 
est of the three, being about sixteen 
and one-half inches in length, the blue- 
wing is about fifteen inches, and the 
green-wing about fourteen inches, the 
latter the smallest of our wild ducks. 
The teal are all very handsome birds. 
The males are exquisitely marked with 
rich, brilliant colors, as well as with 
the softest shades. Next to the wood- 
duck they are, perhaps, the handsom- 
est members of the American duck fam- 
ily. They are also trim of outline and 
very graceful, both on the water and 
in the air. 
The blue-wings and the green-wings 
are found from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific Coast, breeding chiefly north 
of the United States and migrating 
south to the West Indies and Northern 
South America. 
On the Pacific Coast the green-wings 
are far more abundant than the blue- 
wings, while in the Eastern and Central 
States this order is reversed. ,The 
cinnamon teal is distinctly a Western 
bird. 
The blue-winged teal are among the 
first ducks to arrive from the North 
when on their Southern migration, and 
usually come to our Northern and Cen- 
tral States as early as September. 
They do not like the cold and they 
soon continue southward when the first 
chilling winds and lowering tempera- 
ture herald the approach of winter. 
In the South, where the sun shines 
brightly, they swim about the shallow 
lagoons or sleep in the sun on the mud 
fiats, delighting in the soft breezes and 
the tropical warmth. 
In the Spring, when seeking the 
breeding grounds, they do not go very 
far North excepting when forced to 
through much persecution, as was gen- 
erally the case before Spring shooting 
By FREDERICK A. WILLITS 
was prohibited, when they went far into 
the wilds of Canada to raise their 
young. 
Before our migratory birds were pro- 
tected by federal law and the shoot- 
ing of them in the Spring prohibited, 
some of the club preserves on Curri- 
tuck Sound, North Carolina, stopped 
all Spring shooting at the ducks, where- 
upon the teal, and other ducks as well, 
began to breed in large numbers on 
their grounds. A special law stopping 
Spring shooting in Jefferson County, 
New York, was followed by the same 
result. These facts clearly demon- 
strated the benefits to be derived from 
laws prohibiting the shooting of wild- 
fowl in the Spring. Now the federal 
law prohibits Spring shooting through- 
out the United States, and this most 
wise enactment has resulted in an ever 
increasing number of ducks breeding 
within our borders each year. 
T HE teal are among the finest of 
all our game birds. They fly with 
tremendous rapidity and this, to- 
gether with their small size, renders 
them exceedingly difficult marks when 
on the wing. They are all splendid 
table birds, their flesh being tender, 
juicy and delicious in flavor. To my 
mind, there is no better bird than a 
blue-wing fat from feeding on wild 
rice and roasted to a turn, although 
the mallard or wood-duck are often its 
equal. 
The teal usually fly close together in 
good sized flocks. When over the de- 
coys they often “bunch,” as the sports- 
man rises from the blind. Several 
birds are often, therefore, killed at a 
shot when the sportsman fires into the 
thick of the flock. But such practice 
is surely not indicative of the best 
grade of sportsmanship. In this day 
of game scarcity, as compared with a 
few years ago, the true sportsman will 
pick the birds at the edge of the flock 
and be satisfied with bagging one with 
each shot. There is far more pleasure, 
sport and humanity in picking a single 
duck and either killing it cleanly or 
missing it altogether than in shooting 
at random into the center of a flock 
where the birds are bunched, and where 
many besides those killed will receive 
a portion of the charge and, wounded, 
get away to die a lingering death. 
Teal spring from the ground or 
water with great rapidity and it is very 
easy to miss them as they rise. In 
jumping the teal in the marshes, where 
they often spring from the tall reeds 
close to the boat, many shots will be 
missed unless the sportsman brings 
himself to aim well above the rising 
target and keeps swinging .his gun up- 
ward as the trigger is pulled. 
When in the marshes, the close prox- 
imity of the little teal to the sports- 
man often makes the shooting difficult, 
especially when using a close-shooting 
gun, since then the charge of shot has 
not had time to spread to any great 
extent and the sportsman has not the 
advantage of a fair sized killing cir- 
cle. In this respect the shooting often 
more closely resembles wood-cock shoot- 
ing in thick cover, where the birds rise 
close to the gun and the shots are at 
short range, than it does the sort of 
shooting generally experienced in 
duck hunting. Therefore, the sports- 
man having more than one gun might 
do well to leave his full-choke, long 
range duck gun at home when going 
to jump the teal in the marshes, and 
take, instead, a gun that throws a more 
open pattern of shot — one bored modi- 
fied or half choke in both barrels, or 
modified choke in the right barrel and 
full choke in the left. 
The sizes of shot used for the teal 
may be smaller than those used for the 
larger ducks. No. 6 is probably the 
best all-around size for point or flight 
shooting, where the shots are at long 
range. No. 7 may be used when shoot- 
ing over decoys, when the birds are 
coming in close, or when jumping the 
birds close at hand in the wild rice. 
I have shot teal with No. 8 shot and 
have several times killed them with 9’s 
when shooting rail-birds in the marshes. 
The smaller sizes of shot make a bet- 
ter pattern and the chances of hitting 
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