Toponymie | Canton de Potton | Place Names

In English, a sarcelle is a duck – one of a family called canards barboteurs, a Blue-winged Teal, to be even more precise.  The canards barboteurs are dabblers, as opposed to divers, which led me to question the difference.  It appears to be physical: divers propel themselves underwater with large feet attached to short legs, situated far back on the body.  Dabblers, by contrast, have smaller feet and their legs are situated farther forward.  They have large wings relative to body weight and fly slowly, which enables them to drop down onto small areas with precision.  Divers, on the other hand, have small wings relative to body weight and fly faster, but must remain in open water with sufficient runway space because they lack the ability to land on water on a dime and must “ run » along the water surface to become airborne.  Pairs and small groups of blue winged teal inhabit shallow ponds and wetlands across much of North America.  Dabblers usually stick to very shallow water, plucking food from the surface and swimming with their heads partially submerged.  Aquatic invertebrates make up a large proportion of their diets.^[1]