Wood Duck – Beautiful Waterfowl

A Common Bird in North American Ponds, Rivers, and Swamps

Mar 4, 2009 Rosemary Drisdelle

The Wood Duck is a strikingly beautiful bird, long a favorite of bird watchers, hunters, collectors and fishermen. The species is interesting in other ways as well.

No other North American duck has such a mix of bold bright colors as the male Wood Duck, Aix sponsa, in his breeding plumage. This unmistakable bird breeds near quiet, shady bodies of water in southeastern North America as far north as the Great Lakes and the Canadian Maritime provinces. In the west, the species nests in southern Manitoba, southern British Columbia, through the northern United States and down the California coast. Outside the breeding season, Wood Ducks form small flocks and overwinter in the southern United States, along the West Coast, and in Mexico.

The Most Beautiful Duck

Because of its bright and unusual plumage, many consider the Wood Duck to be the most beautiful of North American ducks. Historically, hunters took it for food, but also for mounting and to harvest feathers for fishing flies. Still a popular game bird today, Wood Ducks are probably still around after decades of exploitation mainly because of the Migratory Bird Convention of 1916, which protected them from being hunted to extinction.

Wood Ducks are Perching Ducks

Most ducks don’t perch in trees, but the Wood Duck does. In fact, throughout most of its range, it is the only duck that does, frequently sitting high up in trees where it is difficult to see. Like the Barrow’s Goldeneye, the species nests in trees as well, choosing old woodpecker holes and hollowed out dead trees, often high above the ground.

Wood Duck Breeding and Nesting

Wood Ducks typically nest in wooded areas close to fresh water, where they have access to seeds, acorns, wild fruit, and small invertebrates of both land and water. Although natural nesting sites have dwindled, the birds readily use a nesting box placed near a pond or even on a post standing in the water. Females return to the same nest, bringing a new mate with them, year after year.

The female Wood Duck lines her nest with down and typically lays between six and fifteen eggs. If there is another female nesting nearby, she may lay eggs in the other nest, and some nests have been found to contain up to forty eggs!

The downy chicks leave the nest shortly after hatching, using their strong sharp toenails and a temporary hook on the bill to climb up to the entrance hole. Then, even if the nest is high in the trees, the flightless young birds must jump, flutter to the ground, and walk to water on their own.

The Wood Duck is the only North American duck that regularly raises two broods in one breeding season, where the summers are long enough—a feature that has probably also contributed to their survival.

Sources:

Birds of North America. Kaufman, Kenn. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

“Wood Duck.” Birds of Nova Scotia

“Wood Duck.” Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds

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Male Wood Duck