From Opus

Male
Photo by Tony Brown
Lake Monger, Perth, Australia

Anas rhynchotis

[edit] Identification

46-56cm

• Long, spatulate bill

Male

• Blue-grey head, with a vertical white crescent
• Chestnut sides
• Blue forewing
• White underwing shows in flight
  

Female

• Overall rufous-brown plumage, with darker streaks on upperparts
• Buffish feather edges

Female
Photo by Neil
Sydney,Australia, February 2004

[edit] Distribution

Australasia: found in south-western and south-eastern Australia; Tasmania, and New Zealand.

[edit] Taxonomy

[edit] Subspecies^[1]

There are 2 subspecies

• A. r. rhynchotis:

• Discontinuously distributed south-western and south-eastern Australia and Tasmania

• A. r. variegata:

• New Zealand

[edit] Habitat

A wide variety of wetlands; prefers large permanent lakes or swamp that have abundant shrubbery cover of melaleuca and cumbungi.
Only an infrequent user of mangrove swamps, floodwaters, sewage farms.

Eclipse Photo by Rookery Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand, November 2008

Sub Adult or Non breeding Male Photo by aussietrev Queensland, Australia, June 2009

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Diet

The diet includes a wide variety of vegetable matter: herbs, grasses, pondweeds, wigeon grass, eelgrass, and algae.

[edit] Breeding

Seven or eight eggs are laid and incubated for 25-26 days; the young fledge after 40-45 days.

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.
2. Avibase
3. Animal Bytes
4. BF Member observations

• List of references

[edit] External Links

• Arthur Grosset's Birds