Northern Shoveler

Spatula clypeata

The northern shoveler, 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. In North America, it breeds along the southern edge of Hudson Bay and west of this body of water, and as far south as the Great Lakes west to Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 16,883 times across 89 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 19°C (typically 9 to 25°C, from 21 areas). That range is wide, so temperature alone does not explain when it turns up.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 26°N in February to 57°N in July, about 3,400 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.