View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - CAN YOU DIG IT?

CAN YOU DIG IT?

I find it amazing that thousands of bird species have evolved in such a way that each fills a particular gap in the food chain. Their size, weight, colouration, feet, digestive system... these and every other part of their bodies, great and small, make every single one of them a perfect fit for the natural niche in which they live. And as the world around them changes, so they change with it. For example, city birds have been shown to sing much louder than those who live in quieter surroundings, and as our planet heats up and some birds no longer have a need to migrate to warmer places each winter then their wings have become proportionately shorter, as they are no longer required to make those long journeys.

I love examples like this, how we can see that a bird has perfectly adapted – and continues to adapt - to its surroundings. Surely there can be no better example of this than the Shoveler? While other birds' beaks have modified over time to crack seeds and nuts (various Finches), probe cracks in bark for tiny insects or spiders (Treecreepers) or rip the flesh from mammalian and avian prey (any hunter or scavenger), these strange-looking swimmers have a beak that's in a specialised evolutionary corner all on its own.

The Shoveler is a dabbling duck meaning that it feed on weeds and small insects either on the surface or just below it, just like the slightly larger common-or-garden Mallard. It has a green head, again, similar to the Mallard but it has one thing that no Mallard has ever had; it has an absolutely humongous bill. It's even bigger than the bill my fuel supplier sent me this winter, it's enormous. This beak is, unsurprisingly, the feature after which it has been named, and, as always, if you dig into ancient bird records you'll find plenty of variations on this theme going back centuries in different locations around the country. In various places it's been known as Broad Bill, Shovel Bill, Spoon Beak and Spoon Bill (that one could be confusing). At one time it was even known to some as the Sheld Duck - 'sheld' being an old English word meaning 'variated', as in 'the duck with the varied and diverse plumage'. It's an accurate description but one that's better applied to that other waterfowl with the modern name Shelduck. Confusing, isn't it? That's one of the reason that serious ornithologists use the Latin names. Not me though, I have a hard enough time remembering what they're called in English.

That bit about having variated plumage simply refers to its multiple colours. I've already mentioned the green head, but looking at the duck's body and you'll see patches of white, black and chestnut brown; you can see why people saw a relationship between Shovelers and the similarly coloured (but much larger) Shelduck. However, if you see a Shoveler flying then another shade will come into view as they have a delightful powder blue leading edge to their wings. It's a really colourful bird but however pretty it might appear, you can't get away from the fact that the one thing you'll notice about the Shoveler is its astonishingly ma-HOO-sive conk! Sorry for going on about it but it's a whopper, it really is, and this means that once you've seen one, you'll never forget it. It's a bird that you can easily and instantly identify, which means that it's one fewer species to get confused by. No other bird stuffs its beak into the water and simply swims along, scooping up food into its bill's filtration system, similar to that of the infinitely larger Blue Whale. We're back where we started with each species changing over multiple generations to live, thrive and survive in the most efficient way possible. If that filtering system is good enough for a whale...

Approximately 20,000 of these ducks spend their winters with us in England. About ten percent of that number nest and raise their young here too, importantly, these are not the same birds that will spend the colder months with us. Our Summer breeders will migrate to the warmth of Spain and France in the Winter months while those that endure the chilly season with us have come to escape the even colder weather in Scandinavia and Russia at that time. These two distinct breeding populations mean that Shovelers can be seen throughout most of England at some point of the year but if you want to see these unusual ducks for yourself, right now, then you need travel no further than the RSPB's Old Moor reserve in South Yorkshire's Dearne Valley.

There are, of course, many other birds, insects, mammals and flowers to be seen at the reserve at this time of year. If our volunteers have done their usual wonderful job in recording them, details should follow in picture form...