- Appearance: sexual dimorphism throughout year
- Breeding males have green crested heads highlighted with black cheeks and white stripes, red eyes, yellow/orange beak, chestnut plumage on neck, sandy plumage on sides, black backs, white undersides, gray underwings, blue patches on wings
- Nonbreeding males have gray plumage
- Females have faded brown plumage with darker brown backs, white undersides, grey beaks, black eyes surrounded by white eye ring, blue patches on wings
- Breeding males have green crested heads highlighted with black cheeks and white stripes, red eyes, yellow/orange beak, chestnut plumage on neck, sandy plumage on sides, black backs, white undersides, gray underwings, blue patches on wings
- Length: 19-21 inches (about 1.75 feet)
- Wingspan: 26-29 inches (about 2 feet)
- Status: common, increasing
- Hunted almost to extinction in late 1800s for plumage, especially males
- Habitat
- Bottomland forests, swamps, beaver ponds, and freshwater marshes
- Also common along creeks and streams
- Found year-round east of Mississippi River, northwest corner of United States, California, and Cuba
- Bottomland forests, swamps, beaver ponds, and freshwater marshes
- Diet
- 80% of diet consists of aquatic vegetation
- Also eat aquatic invertebrates, bugs, seeds, fruit, acorns, and weeds
- Juveniles feed on mostly aquatic invertebrates, then mostly eat plant material when they mature
- Foraging techniques combine surface skimming, dabbling under surface, uprooting plants from bottom of shallow water, and diving
- Wood ducks dive up to 1m underwater
- Unlike ducks specialized for diving, wood ducks’ legs are not situated by tail, so they are able to easily take off vertically
- 80% of diet consists of aquatic vegetation
- Migration
- Migrate to breeding ranges as ice thaws in early spring
- Migratory populations breed in northernmost United States and southern Canada
- Migrate to wintering range once ice begins to freeze
- Overwinter in southern United States, most commonly along Atlantic / Gulf Coast
- Live in Long Island marshland year-round, these ducks do not migrate
- Capable of traveling 800 miles in 8 hours with strong tailwind
- Average flight speed is about 15-20 mph, top flight speed is 30 mph
- Largest eyes of any duck in the world, helpful for seeing and avoiding branches while flying through forests
- Nesting
- Most birds arriving to breeding site are already paired
- Choose mates in winter range
- Wood ducks have one mate per year
- Nest in cavities of live or dead trees
- normally situated near to or over water, but may use cavities up to 1.2 miles from water
- Cannot make own cavities, but sometimes use old woodpecker nests
- Wood ducks are one of only duck species that has claws on their feet – helps to grip branches and climb bark walls of tree cavity
- Return to same breeding site unless habitat becomes unfavorable
- Human development of habitat drives wood ducks away,
- Nest boxes can maintain their populations in absence of trees
- Wood ducks are not territorial, males may keep other males away from mate
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- Skittish around humans
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- Females practice “brood parasitism,” or laying eggs in other wood duck nests
- Average brood is 8-12 creamy white or tan eggs
- Nests have been found with about 30 eggs as a result of egg dumping by other females – more common in nest boxes because they are easier to find
- Only North American duck that regularly lays two clutches of eggs per year
- After hatching, duckling jump out of nest and head towards water to forage
- Ducklings can jump from heights over 50 feet without injury
- Males become less involved in protecting females after eggs are laid, once they hatch, he abandons the female
- Average lifespan is 3-4 years in wild, 15-20 years in captivity; oldest wood duck was about 23 years old
- Most birds arriving to breeding site are already paired
