Blue-winged Teal Study

My current project this month, March 2018, is carving a drake Blue-winged Teal.  I am near the final process of painting the bird and needed many detailed close-ups of the feathers.  I did search google and found many great pictures, but there was certain angles that were hard to come by.  So, I decided to go out to Green Cay Nature Center in Palm Beach County where I've seen these birds at a close distance, and take some ( a lot!) of pictures. I hope these pictures help you, if you're also painting a Blue-winged Teal or just wondering what one looks like up close. The Blue-winged Teals (and other birds) here really don't pay attention to the hoards of loud tourist walking on the boardwalk and its a great place to bird watch and take pictures, also just a beautiful wetland.

 Details of the primaries sticking out, the decorative tertials, and the spotted flanks. The white spot is the femoral tract.

 A view of the scapulars, mantle, and front profile of the ducks head.  Its quite narrow in proportion to the round body.

 Another male, with his head flung back over its body.  It looks like its rubbing its head over its oil-gland. The spotted breast appears more rust colored in this lighting, and the beautiful namesake blue wing is visible.

Preening its mantle, you can see how the feathers in this area area a little different than the spotted body feathers and also different from the wing feathers and tertials. You can also see the iridescent violet head feathers.

The iridescent green speculum feathers. Ususally these are hidden under the flanks when this species is swimming. There is also a blue tertial feather that is sometimes visible.

 Wing fully stretched. Ducks usually use their foot to help stretch the wing out when preening (you can see one toe sticking out).

The sky blue coverts, and white greater coverts. The wing of the blue-winged teal is very helpful in identifying sexes during fall when both the male and female look almost identical.  The male wing is the same as this, but the female will have a someone spotted, greater covert, instead of the bright white like the male birds.

Nap time!  

Thanks for reading, hope you have a wonderful day.