Northern Shoveler

How to identify

Field marks

1. Bill large and long, with a broad, shovel-like tip
2. Male has a dark green head and neck with a metallic gloss
3. Male has a white breast and chestnut belly and flanks
4. Male shows pale gray-blue wing coverts contrasting with a green speculum in flight

Male, female and young

Female mottled brown with a whitish tail and dark eyestripe.

Voice

Male gives a muffled “clunk”-like sound; female gives quacking calls like Mallard.

Similar species

Mallard

Female’s plumage is very similar to female Mallard’s, but Northern Shoveler’s long, broad bill makes it easy to distinguish at a glance.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: January and March–April · Most records: United States, Canada, United Kingdom

Northern Shoveler has been recorded at 3,201 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 154 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Estero Llano Grande SP WBCUnited States24,553 records
2. Sweetwater WetlandsUnited States21,294 records
3. Riparian Preserve at Gilbert Water RanchUnited States20,718 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United StatesCanadaUnited KingdomSpainChinaIndiaPortugalIsrael

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The northern shoveler (Spatula clypeata), often known simply as the shoveler where other related species do not occur, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and throughout the Palearctic and across most of North America, and winters in southern Europe, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. It is a rare vagrant to Australia.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions