(aka Anas clypeata)
Photos 1 and 2 were taken on Westray, Orkney, Scotland, photos 3 and 4 in Suffolk and photo 5 in the Yukon, Canada.
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| Northern Shoveler Spatula clypeata (aka Anas clypeata) |
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The Northern Shoveler is distributed in temperate zones of Europe, Asia and North America. They are found in open
woodland and grassland where there are shallow fresh-water bodies on which they can feed.
Photos 1 and 2 were taken on Westray, Orkney, Scotland, photos 3 and 4 in Suffolk and photo 5 in the Yukon, Canada. |
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Food consists of tiny shellfish, insects and their larvae and plants including seeds. They use various feeding techniques including dabbling and diving but are notable for their surface feeding techniques where the large bill is used to sweep the surface of the water and their highly developed filtering mechanism retains plankton, etc.. | |||
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They are largely migratory with populations moving south in the winter but in a general shift rather than a unified movement. Thus birds that have bred in Iceland winter in Britain and birds that bred in Britain winter in France and Spain. | |||
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It has a very noticeable long and broad bill which gives the bird a front heavy look when swimming and flying. The breeding male, as seen in these photos, has a green head, a white breast and a bright chestnut belly and flanks. The upper forewing is pale blue and it has a green speculum with a white border at the front edge. The female, seen to the right of photos 4 and 5, looks a bit like a female Mallard but with an enormous bill. | |||
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There are recordings on xeno-canto, a distribution map for the Americas only from NatureServe and additional information available via Avibase. | |||
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