Strange Waterfowl

Northern Shovelers are a common overwintering waterfowl in Prospect Park, so I rarely pay them much attention. It took the fresh, unjaded eyes of my friend Heydi to point out that one looked very different.

At first we thought that it was a hybrid; maybe a cross between a Northern Shoveler and Blue-winged Teal. It has the overall shape of a shoveler and the distinctive large, spatulate bill. Unlike the Northern Shoveler, but similar to a Blue-winged Teal, it has a white, vertical patch on the front of its face. The Northern Shoveler also has a clean, white breast. This bird has an off-white breast with a fine, dark hatch pattern. The pattern also extends to its red flanks.

I looked online for information on shoveler x teal hybrids and found a few websites with photographs of similar looking birds. Most were listed as Northern Shoveler / Blue-winged Teal hybrids. Looking up information on non-North American species of shovelers I discovered that there is an Australasian Shoveler - Anas rhynchotis. To my eye, it seems that the bird in Prospect Park is not a hybrid, but an Australasian Shoveler. I don't think that there is anyway to prove that this bird flew from Australia to Brooklyn and a more plausible explanation is that it escaped from a zoo or other private collection. It does make you wonder, though, because stranger vagrants have appeared within the borders of New York City from very distant lands.

Here's a video of the Prospect Park duck.