Mystery Bird: Northern Shoveler, Anas clypeata

tags: Northern Shoveler, Anas clypeata, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

Rick Wright, author of Aimophila Adventures and Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:

This is a great illustration of how it pays to know more about your birds than just their "field marks." If this male Northern Shoveler weren't so intent on his morning toilette, we'd see the long, broad spoonbill that gives the species its name. But even so, there's plenty to see here that lets us identify the bird to species.

Not many ducks have feet this bright, and the white tail rules out any number of waterfowl. We can see a large white "fender" in front of the black undertail, and what we can see of the belly and flanks is cinnamon brown. The breast is bright white, the neck dark. That underparts pattern of dark-white-dark-white-dark fits only Northern Shoveler (and John and Kathy Sill's "Target Duck," if I correctly recall their wonderful "Another Field Guide to Little Known and Seldom Seen Birds of North America").

The spread wing, just a little worse for wear or birdshot, shows the wing characters to great advantage. The secondaries are glossy green, producing a noticeable speculum. The greater coverts are very broadly tipped white, creating a single wingbar. And the lesser coverts are a beautiful powdery blue, together forming a pale pane. Northern Shoveler shares that general wing pattern with the other "blue-winged" ducks, which in our area include Blue-winged and Cinnamon Teal.

If this shoveler were to lift his head and suddenly find us standing above him, he might well fly off, making an incredible racket of noisy wingbeats that are themselves a useful identifying character for unseen birds.

Review all mystery birds to date.