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Assumptions about breeding site fidelity (i.e., fidelity) in blue‐winged teal (Spatula discors) are based on limited recapture data and analytic techniques. We banded female blue‐winged teal (n = 12,543) from 2003 to 2014 in a 3,800‐ha sample area in north‐central South Dakota, USA, and used a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach combining live recapture and dead recovery data to predict probabilities of fidelity, survival, recapture, and reporting. We explored sources of variation including time, annual wet area on the landscape, age, and nest survival, and compared our results to other dabbling ducks that nest in the Prairie Pothole Region, a critically important breeding area for waterfowl in central North America. We found annual estimates of fidelity ranging from 0.20 to 0.91, with mean values of 0.62 and 0.67 for hatch year birds and after hatch year birds, respectively. Our findings indicate that environmental factors may cause blue‐winged teal to return to breeding sites more frequently than previously assumed. © The Wildlife Society, 2019 We combined live recapture and dead recovery data to estimate breeding site fidelity and other parameters in blue‐winged teal banded in South Dakota. Rates of fidelity fluctuated over time and may be correlated environmental factors such as available landscape wet area and nest survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]