Teal season opening soon - differentiating sexes

Special teal season start soon in many states. All blue-wings are in basic (aka eclipse) plumage at this time of year.

That means males and females look identical on the wing. But in hand they are easy to distinguish. The white on the secondary wing coverts – the feathers between the light blue and the green speculum varies with sex.

Males have lots of white – left wing; females have just splotched white (right wing) on those feathers.