As with most species of ducks found in nature, the male northern shoveler is the more attractive gender. The breeding drake boasts an iridescent dark green head, white breast, and chestnut belly and flanks. In flight, pale blue forewing feathers can be observed separated from the green speculum by a white border.
The female, on the other hand, is a drab, mottled brown like other dabblers. The female’s forewing is gray, and these colors help to camouflage her during nesting. However, in both the male and female of this species, it is not their colors that make them so easily identifiable, but rather their large bills. The northern shoveler is most known for its large, long, broad bill, which measures up to 2.5 inches in length.
Using these long, broad bills, the shoveler feeds by dabbling for plant food. Rather than dipping its body forward, the shoveler uses its bill to skim the water. The shoveler can be observed swinging its bill from side to side as a means of using their bill to strain food from the water. Feeding on seeds of sedges, sawgrass, pond-weeds, bulrushes, smart-weeds, algae, duckweeds, and small aquatic insects such as mollusks and crustaceans, this highly specialized bill is equipped with well-developed, small, comb-like structures along its edge that work like a sieve to ensure they take in more food than water.
Weighing somewhere between 14 to 30 ounces, the northern shoveler prefers open wetlands, such as wet grassland or marshes with some emergent vegetation. Wintering in the South, this dabbling duck is strongly migratory and tends to winter further south than its breeding range.
Northern shovelers breed in grasslands. Pairing formation begins in winter and continues into spring migration. Several males may court one female by gathering around her on the water. Each male will then attempt to lead the female away by either swimming away or by flying a short distance. The female will indicate her choice of male by following.
When nesting, the shoveler prefers shallow marshes that are mud-bottomed and rich in invertebrate life. The female will build the nest in a shallow depression, partly filled with dried grasses and weeds, and lined with down. Nesting sites are typically located on the ground in a grassy area and away from open water.
Females will lay between 6 to 14 pale olive eggs. If the first clutch of eggs is somehow destroyed, the replacement clutch will usually have fewer eggs. Only the female is involved in incubation, which lasts between 21 to 27 days. Although the male does not participate in incubation, he does stay with the female longer than most other ducks, often through part of the incubation period.
Within a few hours of hatching, the female leads the young to water, keeping them close to vegetative cover. The young are capable of flight 52 to 60 days after hatching.
James L. Cummins is executive director of Wildlife Mississippi, a nonprofit, conservation organization founded to conserve, restore and enhance fish, wildlife and plant resources throughout Mississippi. The website is www.wildlifemiss.org.
