NJ The Garden State's Birds
View allAll Photos Tagged Shovel
A shoveler drake on the tack piece at Slimbridge Wetlands Centre, this was taken from the Stephen Kirk hide.
Northern Shoveler (Spatula clypeata), is a medium sized duck. Breeding males have dark green head, white breast, and chestnut sides and belly.
An adult male Australasian Shoveler (Kuruwhengi), Mawaihakona Stream, Upper Hutt, New Zealand. The Kuruwhengi is a specialist filter-feeder using its large shovel-shaped bill to gather water and force-filter through fine lamellae (membrane) that extend along the edge of the upper mandible.
© Geoff Smithson. All Rights Reserved.
All my displayed images are my exclusive property, and are protected under International Copyright laws. Those images may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted or, in any way manipulated, without my written permission and use license. Unauthorized use or reproduction for any reason is strictly prohibited.
If you wish to use any of my images, please contact me via Flickr mail.
I took this image last month and just as well, as very few ducks are being seen, likely have headed back up north.
20190205 8023
Another shot of the shoveler ducks because I like them a lot 😊
They rarely breed in Denmark and will probably go to Sweden for the summer.
They have just taken off from the lake.
800_0599
This pair of Northern Shovelers were seen at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida.
The green-headed drake leads in this picture.
A drake Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata) roosts on a small mound in a wetland in Elk Island National Park east of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
31 May, 2021.
Slide # GWB_20210531_7585.CR2
Use of this image on websites, blogs or other media without explicit permission is not permitted.
© Gerard W. Beyersbergen - All Rights Reserved Worldwide In Perpetuity - No Unauthorized Use.
There were quite a few shovelers in New Mexico. They are easy to recognize by their large shnoz. (1) Speaking of their shnoz, I found this on Wikipedia: "Northern shovelers feed by dabbling for plant food, often by swinging its bill from side to side and using the bill to strain food from the water. They use their highly specialized bill (from which their name is derived) to forage for aquatic invertebrates. Their wide-flat bill is equipped with well-developed lamellae – small, comb-like structures on the edge of the bill that act like sieves, allowing the birds to skim crustaceans and plankton from the water's surface. This adaptation, more specialized in shovelers, gives them an advantage over other puddle ducks, with which they do not have to compete for food resources during most of the year. Thus, mud-bottomed marshes rich in invertebrate life are their habitat of choice.[14]"
This is a pic of the more colorful male, or drake in duck talk, taking off in the early morning at Bosque del Apache, NM. (Anas clypeata)
(1) From the web: Why is a nose called a schnoz? The word schnozzle may come from an alteration of the Yiddish shnoitsl, a diminutive of shnoits, from the German Schnauze, meaning “snout.” Several other nose-related Yiddish words begin with schn or shn, including shnabl and shnuk, both meaning “beak,” and shnoyts, meaning “snout.”
Northern shovelers look similar to mallards given just a glance since males have a green head and females are mottled brown, but then take a look at those large spatulate bills - that have a shovel shape. These lovely ducks will work their way out west into the Dakotas to nest.
There were many water birds at Radio Road. Among the many was this juvenile Shoveler. He was enjoying swimming and foraging for food. They are often referred to as the "Spoonbill" or "Spoony" because of their unique spatulate shaped bill, which has about 110 fine projections (called lamellae) along the edges, for straining food from water.
Northern Shoveler - Spatula clypeata
This is a bird of open wetlands, such as wet grassland or marshes with some emergent vegetation. It breeds in wide areas across Eurasia, western North America and the Great Lakes region of the United States.
This bird winters in southern Europe, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, northern South America, Malay Archipelago, Japan and other areas. Those wintering in the Indian Subcontinent make the taxing journey over the Himalayas, often taking a break in wetlands just south of the Himalaya before continuing further south to warmer regions. In North America it winters south of a line from Washington to Idaho and from New Mexico east to Kentucky, also along the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Massachusetts. In the British Isles, home to more than 20% of the North Western European population, it is best known as a winter visitor, although it is more frequently seen in southern and eastern England, especially around the Ouse Washes, the Humber and the North Kent Marshes, and in much smaller numbers in Scotland and western parts of England. In winter, breeding birds move south, and are replaced by an influx of continental birds from further north. It breeds across most of Ireland, but the population there is very difficult to assess.
It is strongly migratory and winters further south than its breeding range. It has occasionally been reported as a vagrant as far south as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It is not as gregarious as some dabbling ducks outside the breeding season and tends to form only small flocks. Among North America's duck species, northern shovelers trail only mallards and blue-winged teal in overall abundance. Their populations have been healthy since the 1960s, and have soared in recent years to more than 5 million birds (2015), most likely because of favorable breeding, migration, and wintering habitat conditions.