Only 1,000 pairs of the shoveler breed in the British Isles.
That is a quarter of the number of mandarin-duck pairs. The winter ‘influx’ of 19,000 birds (a fifth of the north-western European population) is dwarfed by wintering teal (430,000), wigeon (445,000) and mallard (665,000).
Globally, shovelers are widespread and numerous