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| Northern Shoveler |
Initially mistook it for Mallard. But from the photograph, it can be seen that the bird is having a long spatulate bill. Hence identifying it has Nothern Shoveler.
The northern shoveler ( Anas clypeata), is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and Asia and across most of North America, wintering in southern
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| Northern Shoveler |
Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Central, and northern South America.
This species is unmistakable in the northern hemisphere due to its large spatulate bill. The breeding drake has an iridescent dark green head, white breast and chestnut belly and flanks. In flight, pale blue forewing feathers are revealed, separated from the green speculum by a white border. In early fall, the male will have a white crescent on each side of the face. In non-breeding (eclipse) plumage, the drake resembles the female.
The female is a drab mottled brown like other dabblers, with plumage much like a female mallard, but easily distinguished by the long broad bill, which is grey tinged with orange on cutting edge and lower mandible. The female's forewing is grey.
Northern shovelers feed by dabbling for plant food, often by swinging its bill from side to side and using the bill to strain food from the water. They use their highly specialised bill (from which their name is derived) to forage for aquatic invertebrates – a carnivorous diet. Their wide-flat bill is equipped with well-developed lamellae – small, comb-like structures on the edge of the bill that act like sieves, allowing the birds to skim crustaceans and plankton from the water's surface. This adaptation, more specialised in shovelers, gives them an advantage over other puddle ducks, with which they do not have to compete for food resources during most of the year. Thus, mud-bottomed marshes rich in invertebrate life are their habitat of choices
source and reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_shoveler
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