Northern Shoveler

The ducks are migrating into the Olympia area. At Capitol Lake on 19 September 2020, Erika and I found a dozen Northern Shovelers among twice as many Mallards. This individual’s dark crown and black, tan-edged, back feathers suggest to me that this bird is a male in mostly immature (Basic) plumage. Shovelers breed from Alaska across central Canada and the northern Great Plains. They also nest from Europe across northern Asia. They winter south to northern South America, central Africa, and much of India and southeast Asia.