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The "s" on the end of that is a coonass thing, like "shrimps" (or "skrimps"), but it seems to help capture the essence of the little jewels. And while the coyote and I also stumbled onto a few hundred mighty tame mallards and spoons in the same flooded rice stubbles, it was the relatively few teal, both green and blue-winged, that made our morning. Started out being careful to just push up a few mallards at a time in order to get to listen to their kin on the water calling to them as they circled and sometime fell back in, but my purpose soon shifted to getting to watch the teal's aerobatics.

The big ducks are nice, but teal...well, they're special.

i call em like that sometimes too - just to sound like a coonass

Greenwings are by far my favorite of the puddle ducks.

We had a lot more bluewings winter here than usual. I didn't get to put my hands on one but others that I hunt with killed a dozen or so in January. I saw quite a few in while out yesterday, beautiful bird when they have all their colors.

Rick wrote:The "s" on the end of that is a coonass thing, like "shrimps" (or "skrimps"), but it seems to help capture the essence of the little jewels. And while the coyote and I also stumbled onto a few hundred mighty tame mallards and spoons in the same flooded rice stubbles, it was the relatively few teal, both green and blue-winged, that made our morning. Started out being careful to just push up a few mallards at a time in order to get to listen to their kin on the water calling to them as they circled and sometime fell back in, but my purpose soon shifted to getting to watch the teal's aerobatics.

The big ducks are nice, but teal...well, they're special.

Some folk would rather shoot teal...or teals!

No question I'm one of those "some folks".

Rick wrote:No question I'm one of those "some folks".

Teal(s) at Rick's Mudhole are quite the hoot when coming in hot from all angles

The annual teal watch has officially begun here, as a reliable friend seeing reported six by their camp a couple days ago. Of course, they may well have been a holdover family, but that's a bit like the lawyer's response to the little boy who asked what 2 plus 2 equaled: "What do you want it to be?" And what began with a trickle will soon be a flood as anxious hunters see what they want to see.

Shoot, I made a U-turn in the highway yesterday to check out "teal" that turned out to be a mob of little tree ducks that's parents were obscured by weeds on my first pass.

Rick wrote:Shoot, I made a U-turn in the highway yesterday to check out "teal" that turned out to be a mob of little tree ducks that's parents were obscured by weeds on my first pass.

That's a clear symptom if the usual sickness of this time of the calendar year. Hoping for some of your usual video clips in a few weeks. At least you (usually) put eyes on a few before the season to get excited about or at least confirm a migration. Last season it was absolute empty skies all the way to sundown on the eve of the opener. But opening day we about ran out of shells.....

Darren wrote:Last season it was absolute empty skies all the way to sundown on the eve of the opener. But opening day we about ran out of shells.....

That's how it usually goes in our marsh, too: nothing around until the guns start putting them out of the rice. Late year, however, there was a strong flight coming north out of the deep marsh before shooting time.

Old video, but I had it copied for something else and figured it wouldn't hurt to post it:

Had a good friend allow me to sit an afternoon watching the little guys hopscotching over each other in the rice while feeding.
(Thank you). It was rice like that in Rick's video. When they went in, you couldn't see them til they rose up to get in front of the line again. At the end of the field, they would all get up in the wind and fly with it back to a new spot just over a little bit and start all over again. Those were moments I may never witness again, but I still have them in my mind and in my heart. Think I may have let a mottled duck poop on me while watching, but oh well. Watching a hundred or two fly into the wind feeding, then bank up and fly with the wind to the other side. turn on their sides, and drop in from about ten feet up was an awesome sight. How can someone not love them? I could be a teal watcher really easily.