River and Pond Ducks 



Nuttall, instead of hovering suspiciously over the spot for awhile, 

 like the mallards. They are silent birds, and, though not always 

 actually so, their low, feeble quack, rapidly repeated, is so dim- 

 inutive that they get little credit for a vocal performance. 



Shoveler 



{Spatula clypeata) 



Called also: SPOONBILL; BROADBILL 

 (Illustration facing p. 1 13) 



Length — 18 to 20 inches. 



Male—Wt2^di and neck dusky, glossy bluish green; back brown, 

 paler on the edges of the feathers, and black on lower back 

 and tail; patches on sides of base of tail, lower neck, upper 

 breast, and some wing feathers white; lower breast and 

 underneath reddish chestnut; shoulders grayish blue; wing 

 patch green. Bill longer than head, twice as wide at end 

 as at base, and rounded over like a spoon ; teeth at the sides 

 in long, slender plates. Tail short, consisting of fourteen 

 sharply pointed feathers. Feet small and red. 



Female — Smaller, darker, and duller than male. Head and neck 

 streaked with buff, brown, and black; throat yellowish 

 white; back dark olive brown, the feathers lighter on the 

 edges ; underparts yellowish brown indistinctly barred with 

 dusky ; wings much like male's, only less vivid. Immature 

 birds have plumage intermediate between their parents'; 

 their shoulders are slaty gray and the wing patch shows 

 little or no green. 



Range — "Northern hemisphere; in America more common in the 

 interior; breeds regularly from Minnesota northward and 

 locally as far south as Texas; not known to breed in the 

 Atlantic States ; winters from southern Illinois and Virginia 

 southward to northern South America." (Chapman.) 



Season — Winter visitor in the south ; spring and autumn migrant 

 north of Washington ; more abundant in autumn migrations 

 in the east. 



However variable the plumage of this duck may be in the 

 sexes and at different seasons, its strangely shaped bill at once 

 identifies it, no other representatives of the spoonbill genus of 

 ducks having found their way to North American waters. Ap- 

 parently the shoveler is guided by touch rather than sight, as it 

 pokes about on the muddy shores of ponds or tips up to probe in 

 the shallow waters for the small shellfish, insects, roots of aquatic 



107 



