Cape shoveler | |
---|---|
Male | |
Female | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Anseriformes |
Family: | Anatidae |
Genus: | Spatula |
Species: | S. smithii |
Binomial name | |
Spatula smithii Hartert, 1891 | |
Synonyms | |
Anas smithii(Hartert, 1891) |
The Cape shoveler or Cape shoveller (Spatula smithii) is a species of dabbling duck of the genus Spatula. It is resident in South Africa, and uncommon further north in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, southern Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Zambia. [1] [2]
This 51–53 cm long duck is non-migratory, but undertakes some local seasonal movements. It is gregarious when not breeding, and may then form large flocks.
This species has a large spatulate bill. Adults have speckled grey-brown plumage and dull orange legs. As with many southern hemisphere ducks, the sexes appear similar, but the male has a paler head than the female, a pale blue forewing separated from the green speculum by a white border, and yellow eyes. The female's forewing is grey.
Cape shoveler can only be confused with a vagrant female northern shoveler, but is much darker and stockier than that species. [2]
It is a bird of open wetlands, such as wet grassland or marshes with some emergent vegetation, and feeds by dabbling for plant food, often by swinging its bill from side to side to strain food from the water. [2] This bird also eats molluscs and insects in the nesting season. The nest is a shallow depression on the ground, lined with plant material and down, and usually close to water.
This is a fairly quiet species. The male has rarr and cawick calls, whereas the female has a quack. [2]
The Cape shoveler was described by the German ornithologist Ernst Hartert in 1891 under the present binomial name Spatula smithii. [3] [4] The specific epithet commemorates the Scottish zoologist Andrew Smith. [5]
The IUCN Red List sets the conservation status of the Cape shoveler as least concern. [1]
The pintail or northern pintail is a duck species with wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America. It is migratory and winters south of its breeding range to the equator. Unusually for a bird with such a large range, it has no geographical subspecies if the possibly conspecific duck Eaton's pintail is considered to be a separate species.
The northern shoveler, known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and across most of North America, wintering in southern Europe, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central, 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.
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Bernier's teal, also known as the Madagascar teal, is a species of duck in the genus Anas. It is endemic to Madagascar, where it is found only along the west coast. Part of the "grey teal" complex found throughout Australasia, it is most closely related to the Andaman teal.
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The blue-billed teal, spotted teal or Hottentot teal is a species of dabbling duck of the genus Spatula. It is migratory resident in eastern and southern Africa, from Sudan and Ethiopia west to Niger and Nigeria and south to South Africa and Namibia. In west Africa and Madagascar it is sedentary.
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Hartlaub's duck is a dark chestnut-coloured duck of African forests. Formerly included in the paraphyletic "perching duck" assemblage, it was later moved to the dabbling duck assemblage. However, it is fairly distinct from the "typical" dabbling ducks, and is placed in the monotypic genus Pteronetta to reflect this.
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