Gadwall (Anas strepera)

County List:

Rule:

Mixed Forested/Nonforested or Nonforested Landscapes

Nesting and Foraging/Brood Rearing Habitats are Adjacent during the early breeding season.

Nesting Habitat:
      (Field/Pasture or Sedge Meadow)
   adjacent to:
      (Lake or Pond)

Foraging/Brood Rearing Habitat:
      (Lake or Pond)
   adjacent to:
      Any Emergent Wetland

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Habitat: For nesting, the Gadwall requires dense herbaceous cover on open sites adjacent to water. It also prefers relatively dry ground, often using island sites occasionally shared with Lesser Scaup and gull and tern colonies. Nests are lined depressions amid thick grasses, reeds, goldenrods, or nettles. A relatively late breeder, the Gadwall often delays nesting until such tall cover types reach an optimal height and density. Shallow, eutrophic waters, especially open, marshy ponds are preferred feeding areas.

Habitat: Breeding: Mainly on fresh water impoundments created on the brackish marshes of coastal national wildlife refuges and state management areas. Also inland on shallow to deep, open-water marshes.

Special Habitat Requirements: Moderate to large bodies of water. Submerged aquatic plants for food.

Habitat: Lakes, ponds, marshes. In summer, mainly around fresh or alkaline lakes in prairie regions or western intermountain valleys where land is open, not forested; also locally in coastal marshes. In migration and winter on marshes, lakes, estuaries, but generally not on salt water.

Diet: Mostly plant material. Feeds mainly on aquatic plants. Compared with other dabbling ducks, eats more leaves and stems of these plants, fewer seeds. Also eats small numbers of mollusks, insects, crustaceans, rarely small fish. Very young ducklings eat many insects at first before shifting to more vegetarian diet.

Nest: Site is usually near water, on dry land, surround by dense weeds or grass. Nest is in shallow depression, built of grasses, weeds, lined with down.