Brazilian Teal
Amazonetta brasiliensis
Small, fairly common duck. Brownish at rest with a dark face, but striking in flight with a white inner wing panel contrasting with an iridescent dark green outer wing. Males have an orange bill, blue-gray in females. Encountered on lakes, ponds, rivers, marshy areas, and occasionally in more saline waters.
Identification
The ducks are light brown in colour. Drakes distinguish themselves from females in having red beaks and legs, and in having a distinctive pale grey area on the side of its head and neck. The colour of these limbs is much duller in females.
Taxonomy
The Brazilian teal was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other ducks, swans and geese in the genus Anas and coined the binomial name Anas brasiliensis. Gmelin based his description on the Mareca alia species (the second Mareca) that was described in 1648 by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae. The Brazilian teal is now the only species placed in the genus Amazonetta that was introduced by the German zoologist Hans von Boetticher in 1929.<p>It was formerly considered a perching duck, but more recent analyses indicate that it belongs to a clade of South American dabbling ducks which also includes the crested duck, the bronze-winged duck, and possibly the steamer ducks.<p>Two subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Amazonetta brasiliensis
- Authority
- (Gmelin, JF, 1789)
- Order
- Anseriformes
- Family
- Anatidae
- Genus
- Amazonetta
Range and habitat
They can be found throughout eastern South America, from central Brazil, to Uruguay, to northern and eastern Argentina, Paraguay, central Venezuela, northeastern Peru, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, eastern Bolivia, and eastern Colombia. Their preferred habitat is a body of freshwater away from the coast with dense vegetation nearby.
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Behavior
Brazilian teal live in pairs or in small groups of up to twenty birds. Both parents look after their hatchlings. They eat seeds, fruits, roots and insect, while ducklings eat only insects.
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Belford's Melidectes
Melidectes belfordi
A large, common honeyeater of upper montane cloud forest. Body gray with white scaling on the back, olive wing feathers and buffy under the base of the tail. Black head with prominent white facial stripe from the base of the bill, pale blue eye ring and bare facial skin behind the eye with a small white line behind it. Similar to Cinnamon-browed and Yellow-browed Melidectes and it hybridizes with the latter. Belford’s however has blue facial skin, dark bill and lacks red wattles.
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A large sparrow with bold black stripes on a gray head, olive-brown upperparts, and whitish underparts with buffy gray tinge. Eyebrow whitish, usually paler face and median crown stripe. Sexes similar. Uncommon to locally common in scrub and forest border in very dry areas. Hard to see, often in pairs foraging in dense vegetation. Vocalization is a very high-pitched whistle. Very similar to Black-striped Sparrow, which has a grayer eyebrow and is slightly darker overall, as well an usually inhabiting more humid habitats than Tocuyo. Found only in northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.
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Tiny, generally uncommon finch of humid evergreen forest and edge in tropical lowlands. Usually in pairs, which associate readily with other euphonias, especially when feeding at mistletoe. Male has black head and throat with yellow forehead patch and white vent (vent yellow on Scrub Euphonias in same range). Yellow breast is richer, more golden yellow than Scrub Euphonia. Female rather drab but distinctive: pale grayish throat contrasts with dull yellowish breast and vent is white like male.
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