Shoveller Duck Nests near City.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 8

Shoveller Duck Nests near City.

Nature Notes

By

James Drummond,

F.L.S.. F.Z.S.

'T'HE SHOVELLER DUCK, often called the spoonbill, is much more plentiful in Canterbury now than it was fifty years ago.

Tame, confiding and sociable, it nests on some of the banks of the Avon near the city, but it should not be confused with the grey duck, which is more confiding still, and is more frequently seen on the Avon’s swiftly running waters. Both these native New Zealand ducks are plentiful in Australia.

The illustration, from Sir Walter Duller Birds of New Zealand,” shows the ma^

in the foreground and the female in the background, in their relative sizes. It does not show the male’s coat of many colours, grey, green, black, brown, chestnut, red, white and blue. Altogether, the male is a very fine fellow. His mate dresses in homely browns. Almost a complete albino male, particularly handsome in its white costume, was taken at Lake Ellesmere.

Muddy shores of lakes and streams are the shoveller’s favourite haunts. Their large bills are well adapted to catch small aquatic insects on which they feed. Their warm, comfortable, cosy nests, made of fine grass lined with down, are pleasant places for the greenish-brown and tawny young, reared in clutches of from ten to thirteen.