The best ways to spend your time don’t necessarily have the highest barriers to entry. They just demand effort and learning.
This was abundantly clear to me after reading Sydney Michalski’s “It’s Maple Syrup Season!” in Moments, a wonderful publication with lovely images. Her article makes maple syrup sound equal parts intricate and accessible. It seems a common confluence for a worthwhile pursuit is accessibility—there’s nothing really stopping you from doing it—and the necessity of learning small intricacies.
Effort and learning aside, Michalski says of making maple syrup:
It’s a very low barrier-to-entry activity, at the hobby level. You just need a drill, spiles, collection containers, and a pot or two.
I never knew much about making maple syrup, and still don’t. I know a little about ducks—and their accessible intricacies.
The duck barrier to entry is nonexistent. Anybody can look at ducks. They aren’t small like warblers or sparrows, so are a little less taxing to find.
They’re just kind of there. There’s no denying that finding ducks on a pond is easier than scanning dense vegetation for a tiny warbler—however colorful.
The hard part arises once you see a duck and try to ID it. An accessible challenge.
It’s spring now. Winter is for waterfowl, but it’s over.
I’ve still managed to see ducks in what is technically spring. I also saw an unexpected shorebird while looking for ducks—one of my favorite species I’ve written about before. Well shit, I thought, forlornly excited.
Ducks permeate many aspects of my life. Driving with passengers, I’ve unthinkingly left my Big Year playlist on shuffle. Much of it is music—“Cicadas and Gulls,” “Peregrine Falcon,” Eels’ “I Like Birds.” It’s also not uncommon to be greeted by John E. Neville before some duck calls.
“These are the gentle calls and splashes of Greater Scaup.”
“These Harlequin Ducks in full plumage were feeding and calling…”
An ancillary joy of birding is driving from spot to spot—belting “You’re a Peregrine Falcon, my bird of prey!” then hearing Neville calmly say “Surf Scoter” before their calls.
For a while, I kept a tab open for a waterfowl ID course. To get an idea of it, I took a free sample quiz. Didn’t answer any incorrectly, so didn’t enroll in this particular one—that’s not to say there still isn’t much remaining for me to learn about ducks.
Finding ducks takes more effort in spring. It requires you spend more time looking where you’ve learned they might be.
I wanted something of a swan song with the ducks—and the swans. Fitting for a swan song, though I have opinions about Mute Swans.
Northern Pintail are my favorite. Saw and thanked them. Green-winged Teal are up there. Saw and thanked them. Lots of Greater Scaup—a few Lesser too. Sprinted in pursuit. Saw them, thanked them.
The Northern Shoveler owns much real estate in my head, so I’ve gone for them many times. I don’t really use eBird when I bird, but I use it beforehand to key in on spots where specific species have been seen. I feel guilty: I’m an eBird taker—I take bird intel, but rarely provide it. Bad enough I bird with my camera, I would feel worse if I whipped out my iPhone every time I saw a species. For my year, I sit at my spreadsheet and replay outings in my head. Sometimes this results in me missing species—Belted Kingfisher, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Cooper’s Hawk—but it’s satisfying to remember and add them to the count later on.
Looking for a Northern Shoveler led me to some Ring-necked Ducks and a distant Barrow’s Goldeneye(!!). The white on its face looked like a teardrop, the white on the wing was less pronounced.
I’m indebted to the birder who pointed it out: “That split stump off in the distance straight ahead—in front of it. Down and to the left. Sort of in the grass.” Felt good to log a Barrow’s Goldeneye. It’d been four years since I’d seen one. Gleefully texted the picture to another duck guy. They said they’d only seen maybe two in their life.
A different day, I tried a different spot for Shovelers. Parked, saw what looked Shoveler-esque. Sprinted. Namesake shovel. Unmistakable profile, borderline comical dabbling duck. Green head, chestnut sides, white chest, green speculum.
Sent a picture of my camera display to the same duck guy. We were already intermittently texting about deer antlers, but I wanted to share the duck.
Walked for more birds—among them, my first Chipping Sparrow of 2024. I circled back to the spot. Northern Shovelers again! A good birding day.
Another birder stopped to tell me there were often Short-eared Owls hunting at a different, nearby area. I hopped in the truck and went, no luck. A Shoveler was still a nice way to define the day.
The duck barrier to entry is nonexistent. That doesn’t mean you’ll see a Northern Shoveler or a Barrow’s Goldeneye your first time out.
Most people don’t find ducks interesting—hence my embarrassment when John Neville comes on. But if you do, here are a couple places to start.
Speculum
I use this term casually in conversation because I use it in a duck context.
A speculum is also a medical tool used “to examine hollow openings in your body.” That’s what somebody once thought I was talking about. Oof. Nope, ducks.
Speculum is the color on a duck’s secondary wing feathers. Great way to tell duck from duck, or get started.
Mallards have a purplish blue speculum with white edges. A Gadwall’s speculum is white—quick way to distinguish them from female Mallards. American Black Ducks have a bluish/purple speculum like a Mallard, but with black edges. A Green-winged Teal’s is, you guessed it, green.
But what seems true based on nomenclature isn’t always. A male Blue-winged Teal’s speculum is not blue. It’s green. A female’s is less iridescent. Speculum color is not the end-all-be-all of duck ID; it’s a fun place to start.
Behavior
Is it a dabbler or a diver? What’s the difference?
Diving ducks get food by diving for it. Bufflehead, Common & Barrow’s Goldeneye, scaup, mergansers, eider. Ring-necked Ducks, Harlequin, the scoter species, others.
Dabbling ducks get their food by upending. The ducks you see with their butts in the air are dabblers. I might have my affinity for divers—Greater Scaup, Common & Barrow’s Goldeneye, Bufflehead—but the Northern Pintail, a dabbling duck, remains my number one. My duck. Green-winged Teal are also dabbling ducks, as are Northern Shovelers. That’s what the bill is for.
Explained by the Cornell Lab: “Northern Shovelers often have their heads down in shallow wetlands, busily sweeping their bills side to side, filtering out aquatic invertebrates and seeds from the water.”
There is no barrier to entry to ducks. If you want to learn about ducks, learn about them. Here is a waterfowl guide to get started with, and a pamphlet I enjoyed. There is also the internet—plenty of duck intel. Best of all, go outside and observe.
If you’re curious about waterfowl, you won’t regret a little effort and learning. Winter is for waterfowl, so you’ve got some time to cultivate duck chops before they’re so abundant again.
Excellent essay and images James. The Northern Shoveler is such a unique looking birds. Waterfowl is my weakest area I think in birding identification. That black and white image of the duck swimming to the right is amazing. Is that a Mallard or American Black Duck?
Thank you for this fascinating post, James. I feel like I went on a field trip. I love watching ducks and am fortunate to see a lot of them where I live. The Northern Shovelers are so unusual and incredible, almost prehistoric looking and a great example of form and function, Spatula clypeata. Your photo series is outstanding and I especially appreciate the diving photo, it’s a little mysterious and left to the imagination as to who might surface.