Birds at Elmendorf Lake, Autumn 2013, Part 3, Settling In For Winter

The second most numerous birds at Elmendorf Lake ten days ago were the Northern Shovelers. These ducks spend their summers from northern New Mexico all the way north to Alaska. It was good to see them back for the winter in large numbers:

One of the more interesting behaviors of the Northern Shoveler is described very well on Whatbird.com: "Socially, they occasionally work together in groups while feeding, rotating like a pin-wheel, stirring up the surface water and skimming it for food particles." That is what they were doing in the first three photos.

Another thing I found interesting was the males clearly outnumbered the females by a very large percentage. The last two photos are of a female Northern Shoveler.

This set of photographs was taken at Elmendorf Lake Park on Thursday, November 21, 2013.

Part 1
Part 2