Northern Shoveler

Description:

Males are beautifully marked with an emerald green iridescent head, white body with rusty burnt red side patches and black feathers on the back and at the tail. Females are just mottled brown. However both have a large shovel-like bill that makes them easy to identify in any stage of molt. The bill is black in the male and dark brown in the female. Like the spoonbill they use their bill to sweep across the water to catch food. These ducks are surface-feeding ducks. If you can decide whether a duck is a surface-feeding duck or a diving duck, you can quickly eliminate half of the choices in your field guide when identifying a duck. Surface-feeding ducks like shovelers, teal and mallards for example- like shallower waters where they can find food such as insects and plants closer to the surface of the water. Surface-feeding ducks also have longer wingspans than their diving counterparts. Therefore they can land more easily in smaller/shallower bodies of water. Where diving ducks need large more open waters to land. Furthermore, surface-feeding ducks have legs at the center of their bodies to allow for balance when tipping forward in the water to get food. Diving ducks have legs at the back of their bodies so as to help them propel in the water when swimming.

Habitat:

Any kind of wetland.

Notes:

East coast species found from Maine to Florida. Can be found in many park ponds or drainage ponds, or any kind of wetland for that matter. A fairly common species of duck. Does migrate to some extent. This pair was found at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.