Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Breeding Range. (Fig.27). Fairly common throughout the Prairie Pothole Region; uncommon on the Coteau Slope and in the Turtle Mountains; uncommon and local in the Agassiz Lake Plain Region, and on the Missouri Slope and Little Missouri Slope.
Breeding Habitat. Complexes that contain a variety of wetland habitats, ranging in salinity from fresh to subsaline. These include seasonal and semipermanent ponds and lakes, and shallow river impoundments that are managed for waterfowl use; stock ponds and pools of intermittent streams also are utilized occasionally. Normally, the greatest habitat use occurs within shallow-marsh zones of fresh and slightly brackish seasonal and semipermanent ponds and lakes and within deep-marsh zones of brackish and subsaline semipermanent ponds and lakes.
Nesting. Breeding season: Early May to mid-September; peak, mid-May to mid-August. Extreme egg dates (87 nests): May 6 [1963] to July 20 [1965] in Stutsman County (RES). Of all nests with eggs that were recorded, 37 percent were found in May, 63 percent in June and 1 percent in July. Extreme dates of dependent young (417 broods): June 8 [1965] to September 17 [1962] in Stutsman County (H. A. Kantrud, RES). Of all broods that were recorded, 8 percent were observed in June, 50 percent in July, 40 percent in August, and 2 percent in September.
Northern Shoveler nests were found in a considerable variety of habitats, principally in native prairie, retired cropland, hayfields, weedy field borders, and other similar situations.
Indicated clutch size (54 nests): 8 to 13 eggs; mean, 10.2 eggs.
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| Figure 27. Breeding Range of Northern Shoveler. |
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U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/bbofnd/species/1420.htm
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Menlo Park, CA [caww54]
