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Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 9:48 am
by Ian Southey
Sorry if I was not clear but I'm specifically inquiring about the Nelson bird.

Ian

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 10:09 am
by andrewcrossland
Crappy photos yes, but just as an initial comparison to the Nelson bird these are the 2 birds at lake ellesmere yesterday.

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Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 2:41 pm
by Amber Calman
He was at the Nelson Sewage ponds at 11:20 this morning, roosting when we arrived with his bright white chest showing.
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Image

There was a couple of other white-ish chested birds that do stand-out but he stands out a lot more.
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IMG_5735.jpg
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I also scanned for females but they would be very hard to see, I've got lots of photos to check though.

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 8:56 pm
by sav
Hi all,

Brilliant stuff. A couple of questions and observations from me. I'm travelling without any of my reference material:

Is there anything in the plumage to separate North American from European/Asian Northern Shovelers? With the small number that are ever seen in Aus, I wonder if ours might have come from the "other" direction?

Females? Of course they are much harder (though not impossible) to pin down, but for pretty much any species prone to vagrancy it is (normally young) males that are the most likely. So there may well be females here as well, but not necessarily so.

I'm in Britain at the moment, and just for the record all the Northern Shovelers that I have seen in the past couple of weeks (and there are lots here!) are well past the pristine plumage of any of these drakes - so I think Ian's comment above about Northern/Southern hemisphere moult cycles is probably redundant.

For those of British origin this might be interesting: I went to RSPB Burton Mere on the Wirral, where 400 (four hundred!) Little Egrets roost!! Best bird there for me was flowering Bee Orchids!

cheers

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2018 5:36 pm
by Steve Wood
Bird still present at 15:00 hrs

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2018 8:58 pm
by Rebecca Bowater
This Northern Shoveler is still at the Nelson WTP this morning
Rebecca Bowater Sat 30th June 2018

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 11:36 am
by Nikki McArthur
Rebecca Bowater's just emailed me to report that she's spotted the Northern shoveler at the Nelson WTP again this morning. As far as I know it hasn't been spotted since Rebecca's last sighting on 30th June

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 12:13 pm
by sav
Hi Nikki,

Can you ask her what plumage it has now? I'm trying to get my head around why these birds have all (so far) been in breeding plumage.

cheers

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:06 pm
by Nikki McArthur
Hi Sav,

Rebecca's just sent through a photo she took of the bird she saw this morning:

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Cheers,
Nikki

Re: Northern shoveler, Nelson WTP

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:14 pm
by sav
Thanks Nikki. So can anyone explain how this plumage works? And anyone who knows about cameras tell me why it has a blue head in this photo??

cheers