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While pair bonds are reasonably strong,
the promiscuous drakes are prone to rape unattached females.
Their well-concealed nests can be exceedingly difficult to locate.
Producing fairly large clutches for such
small ducks, females lay up to 16 eggs,
but the incubation period of 21-23 days is quite short.
Pair bonds dissolve when drakes desert their mates during incubation,
and some males undertake lengthy molt migrations of up to a thousand miles.
Young in the far north fledge in less than 30 days, but six
weeks may be required in southern locales.
Despite being only a quarter the size of Mallards,
Green-winged Teal are highly sought gamebirds.
The American population reaches seven million in some years,
but the number falls considerably by spring.
The 1995 breeding population consisted of at least 2.25 million teal.
As many as 1.8 million winter in the western Palearctic and eastern Mediterranean,
and perhaps 1.9 million teal gather in Asia.
While the teal have long been prized by aviculturists,
Eurasian birds are rather scarce in New World collections
and the Aleutian teal have never been maintained.
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The Eurasian Green-winged Teal was the first duck
to have its migration routes investigated by banding.
In Britain, a group of teal is known as a spring of teal.
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