S8 
The Natural History of British Ducks 
THE SHOVELER 
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Spatula Clypeata (LlNN^US) 
Except, perhaps, the Pintail, none of the surface-feeding ducks which visit 
us have such a wide range throughout the world as the Shoveler. It nests 
in most of the intervening countries from Archangel, in the Arctic Circle, to 
Algeria, and in winter it is abundant in Egypt, and even extends its migra- 
tions as far south as Cape Colony. In the cold season it is found from 
Sweden eastwards across Asia to China and Japan, and, according to Howard 
Saunders, it also moves south through the Malay Archipelago to Australia 
and the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific; while in America it is found from 
Alaska to Texas, wintering as far south as Panama. 
In England the Shoveler is chiefly known as a spring and winter visitor; 
in Scotland as a summer visitor and breeding species, and in Ireland as a 
.resident, a migrant, and a winter visitor. 
H ere, in England, it is principally known in the eastern and northern 
counties, where it most commonly arrives in March and April. It nests 
regularly in Norfolk and Lincolnshire, and more sparingly in Suffolk, Bucks, 
Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland, whilst in Nottinghamshire both this 
species and the Tufted duck are greatly on the increase. Fifty years ago, 
except at Loch Spynie, Shovelers were practically unknown in Scotland as a 
breeding species, and though annual spring visitors there as well as at Loch 
Leven, they could not be regarded as habitual residents till the year 1880, 
when a great increase took place in their numbers. About that time the first 
pair or two nested on these lakes and, like other species, their progeny have 
since bred freely in the old haunts, and have now spread through the length 
