|
This is the smallest British duck. It is a common species, breeding in Britain, its numbers being increased in winter by visitors from abroad. Being a very lively duck, and a strong swift flier which can rise almost vertically from the water, the collective noun for this bird "A Spring of Teal" is very apt.
It loves to dabble in the shallows, sifting tiny animalculae from the surface through the sieve-like structure of its bill. The nest is a hollow in some dry clump of rush, or other cover, lined with down plucked from its own body. |
