A Season of Firsts: Three Christmas Bird Counts to Remember
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The joy of experiencing a Christmas Bird Count for the first time, as told by Christine Lin and Gabrielle Saleh.
Breeding adult male. Photo: Lynn Cleveland/Audubon Photography Awards
Spatula clypeata
| Conservation status | Common and widespread. |
| Family | Ducks and Geese |
| Habitat | Marshes, ponds; in winter, also salt bays. In summer in open country such as prairie, marsh, or tundra, in vicinity of shallow water. In migration and winter on alkaline lakes, fresh marshes, tidal estuaries, or any shallow waters with extensive muddy margins, including stagnant or polluted waters not much favored by other ducks. |
Forages mainly by swimming slowly forward with the bill skimming the surface or with the head partly submerged, often swinging the bill from side to side as it sifts food from the muddy water. Seldom up-ends, rarely dives, seldom feeds on land.
9-12, sometimes 6-14. Shades of pale olive. If first clutch of eggs is destroyed, replacement clutch usually has fewer eggs. Incubation is by female only, 21-27 days. Young: within a few hours after eggs hatch, female leads young to water, generally keeping them close to cover of marsh vegetation. Young are capable of flight 52-60 days after hatching.
Within a few hours after eggs hatch, female leads young to water, generally keeping them close to cover of marsh vegetation. Young are capable of flight 52-60 days after hatching.
Varies with season and habitat. In winter may feed mostly on seeds and other parts of aquatic plants, such as sedges, pondweeds, grasses, and others. Also (especially in summer) eats mollusks, insects, crustaceans, sometimes small fish.
Pair formation begins in winter and continues during spring migration. Several males may court one female, gathering around her on water. Each male in turn attempts to lead female away, by swimming away or by short flight; female indicates acceptance by flying away with male. Male remains with female longer than in most ducks, often through part of incubation period. Nest site is usually close to water, generally in area of short grass. Nest (built by female) is a shallow depression partly filled with dried grasses and weeds, lined with down.
Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
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Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Migrates in flocks. Migratory period is quite prolonged in both spring and fall, with many birds moving late in spring and early in fall.
Migrates in flocks. Migratory period is quite prolonged in both spring and fall, with many birds moving late in spring and early in fall.
See a fully interactive migration map for this species on the Bird Migration Explorer.
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Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.
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