Habitat
Inland wetlands, including marshes, swamps, bogs, fens and peatlands. Also freshwater lakes, saltmarshes and coastal inshore waters. From sea-level to 2,500 m.
Anguilla, Antigua And Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Martinique, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, St Kitts And Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uruguay (B) (NB), USA, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (British) (B) (NB), Virgin Islands (U.S.) (B) (NB).
Vagrant to Jamaica, Panama.
Population
Estimated population is 180,000 - 1,100,000 (2010).
White-cheeked Pintail (Anas bahamensis) [XC602244]
by Ignacio Escobar from Ilha do Pontal, Piratininga, Niter\u00f3i, Brazil (flight call, wing beats)
White-cheeked Pintail (Anas bahamensis) [XC257282]
by John V. Moore from El Oro: 4 km N of Santa Rosa, Ecuador (call, flight call, take-off calls, flight calls)
Subspecies
Considered by some to form superspecies with Red-billed Teal (Anas erythrorhyncha).
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
bahamensis Linnaeus, 1758 - West Indies, northern South America to northern Brazil.
rubrirostris Vieillot, 1816 - Eastern Bolivia and southern Brazil to northern Argentina and Uruguay.