Northern Shoveler - male with fall plumage?

[Indranil Sircar]

I think it is a Northern Shoveler male with fall plumage. The eye seems to be red instead of yellow. Any idea?

[Declan Troy]

Hi Indranil,

This is a Northern Shoveler male. As to the rest I lean to a slightly different interpretation. My suspicion is that this is young bird. The terminology is awkward but lets just say it was likely born last summer (if one were banding this bird it would be recorded as SY = second year) and is just molting into a more typical male like plumage. Although I can't see them clearly the pattern on some of the wing coverts suggests the age to me as well as the eye which changes from brown to yellow during this period. I'm also assuming that you took this image recently (dates help when talking about age and plumages).

Declan

[Indranil Sircar]

Hi Declan, thanks for the clarification. Yes, I took this a week ago.