Cinnamon teal

Female Spatula cyanoptera septentrionalium

Male (left) and female

The adult male has a cinnamon-red head and body with a brown back, a red eye and a dark bill. The adult female has a mottled brown body, a pale brown head, brown eyes and a grey bill and is very similar in appearance to a female blue-winged teal; however, its overall color is richer, the lores, eye line, and eye ring are less distinct. Its bill is longer and more spatulate. Male juvenile resembles a female cinnamon or blue-winged teal but their eyes are red.[2][3] They are 16 in (41 cm) long, have a 22-inch (560 mm) wingspan, and weigh 14 oz (400 g).[3] They have 2 adult molts per year and a third molt in their first year.[3]

Their breeding habitat is marshes and ponds in western United States and extreme southwestern Canada, and are rare visitors to the east coast of the United States.[3] Cinnamon teal generally select new mates each year. They are migratory and most winter in northern South America and the Caribbean,[4] generally not migrating as far as the blue-winged teal. Some winter in California and southwestern Arizona.[2] Two subspecies of cinnamon teal reside within the Andes of South America. The smaller sized S. c. cyanoptera is widespread within low elevations (<1000m) such as the coast of Peru and southern Argentina, whereas the larger size subspecies S. c. orinomus occupies elevations of 3500–4600 meters in the central Andes.[5]

Male

These birds feed by dabbling. They mainly eat plants; their diet may include molluscs and aquatic insects.

They are known to interbreed with blue-winged teals,[2] which are very close relatives.

Subspecies are:

• Spatula cyanoptera septentrionalium (Oberholser, 1906) northern cinnamon teal breeds from British Columbia to northwestern New Mexico, and they winter in northwestern South America.[6]
• Spatula cyanoptera tropica (Snyder & Lumsden, 1951) tropical cinnamon teal occurs in the Cauca Valley and Magdalena Valley in Colombia.[6]
• Spatula cyanoptera borreroi (Snyder & Lumsden, 1951) Borrero's cinnamon teal (possibly extinct) occurs in the eastern Andes of Colombia with records of apparently resident birds from northern Ecuador.[6] It is named for Colombian ornithologist José Ignacio Borrero.
• Spatula cyanoptera orinoma (Snyder & Lumsden, 1951) Andean cinnamon teal occurs in the Altiplano of Peru, northern Chile and Bolivia.[6]
• Spatula cyanoptera cyanoptera (Vieillot, 1816) Argentine cinnamon teal occurs in southern Peru, southern Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands.[6]

• Clements, James, (2007) The Clements Checklist of the Birds of the World, Cornell University Press, Ithaca
• Dunn, J. & Alderfer, J. (2006) National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America 5th Ed.
• Floyd, T (2008) Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America HarperCollins, NY
• Herrera, Néstor; Rivera, Roberto; Ibarra Portillo, Ricardo & Rodríguez, Wilfredo (2006): Nuevos registros para la avifauna de El Salvador. ["New records for the avifauna of El Salvador"]. Boletín de la Sociedad Antioqueña de Ornitología 16(2): 1–19. [Spanish with English abstract]PDF fulltext

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spatula cyanoptera.

Wikispecies has information related to Anas cyanoptera.

• "Cinnamon Teal media". Internet Bird Collection.
• Cinnamon Teal, Birds of North America Online
• Cinnamon Teal Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Cinnamon Teal photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
• Interactive range map of Anas cyanoptera at IUCN Red List maps