[8] The speckled teal also has a yellow bill but differs in being smaller and more compact, with less spotting on the flanks, and having a buff bar in front of the speculum, a central white stripe on the underwing, and a shorter and less pointed tail.

[9] Murphy noted:On December 20th, 1912, I photographed a pair of teals feeding in a trickle of water which ran through tall tussock grass from the melting edge of a glacier.

Many observers have noted the birds’ preference to lose themselves in the grass when they are approached, rather than to seek safety in the air, and it is likely that before the arrival of men and guns at South Georgia they used their wings only for relatively short and infrequent flights.

[11] They also consume a range of invertebrates, including freshwater fairy shrimp (Brachinecta gaini), marine amphipods, Diptera, small clams, nematodes and snails, foraging in the intertidal zone and sometimes scavenging at seal carcasses.

[12][13][14] David Parmelee describes the latter behaviour from Bird Island as follows: "One might surmise that the delicate little pintails wait their turn to pick at the bones and small scraps left by the larger predators.

As soon as there is a small opening in the seal carcass the ducks dive headlong into the hole, which conceals from view their bills and at times even their heads.

Unlike the giant petrels that acquire grisly scarlet heads while gorging on the bloody flesh, the fastidious pintails remain remarkably clean by dipping frequently into streams or pools of water.

[18] The preferred habitat for raising broods is tussock-rimmed freshwater ponds where the chicks feed around the edges while the female stays in more open water.

[16] Niall Rankin, who led an expedition to South Georgia after the Second World War, said: I never discovered a nest with eggs, but found two ducklings on Albatross Island, about two days old, on December 18th, also another brood about a week old on March 11th.

[19]Calls recorded from the adult male include a burp – a wheezy, hollow-sounding geee-geeee, rising and falling in pitch, with a concurrent double-noted whistle.

The duck utters a soft quack, and a gurgling note which von den Steinen likened to the bursting of large bubbles.”[20] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the pintails were considered common; though Murphy reported that, by 1912, intensive hunting by whalers and sealers had reduced the population considerably.

Numbers have steadily decreased and while 40 years ago a flock of 100 teal was not an uncommon sight in the winter season, now it is unusual to see more than half a dozen together.