Duck-like Birds
Wood Duck
Aix sponsa
Description
17-20" (43-51 cm). A beautiful,
crested, multicolored duck. Male patterned in iridescent greens,
purples, and blues with distinctive white chin patch and face
stripes; bill mainly red; tail long. Female grayish with broad white
eye ring.
Voice
Female, loud wooo-eeek!; male, softer jeee?
or ter-weeeee?
Habitat
Wooded rivers and ponds; wooded swamps.
Visits freshwater marshes in late summer and fall.
Nesting
9-12 whitish or tan eggs in a nest made
of down in a natural tree cavity or a man-made nest box, sometimes
up to 50' (15 m) off the ground.
Range
Breeds from British Columbia south to
California, and from Montana east to Nova Scotia and south to Texas
and Florida; absent from Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. Winters
near Pacific Coast north to Washington, and to New Jersey in East,
rarely farther north.
Discussion
One of the most beautiful of American
waterfowl, the Wood Duck was hunted nearly to extinction during the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1918 the hunting season was
closed, and for the next two decades numbers rose steadily. There
are now well over a million Wood Ducks in North America. The Wood
Duck's habit of nesting in cavities enables it to breed in areas
lacking suitable ground cover. The young leave the nest soon after
hatching, jumping from the nesting cavity to the ground or water.
Once out of the nest, they travel through wooded ponds with their
mother. Snapping turtles take a heavy toll of the
young.
Duck-like Birds