Hear a story about the wood duck.
Hear a wood duck.

from The Birds of Texas
by John L. Tveten

In a recent poll conducted by American Birds magazine, ten outstanding wildlife artists were asked to name their candidates for the ten most beautiful birds in the world. The wood duck tied for third place with the blue bird of paradise. Only the American swallow-tailed kite and the resplendent quetzal of Central America garnered more votes. Many of the world's birds exhibit remarkable beauty, but few can equal the iridescent rainbow splendor of this most colorful of ducks.

The male in breeding plumage, with his shimmering colors and sleek crest, can be mistaken for no other. Duller in eclipse, he still retains the unique head pattern. The female has a short crest and a distinctive light teardrop-shaped patch around the eye. Even the scientific name testifies to the glamour of the species. A Hybrid of Greek and Latin, Aix sponsa loosely translates as "waterfowl in wedding raiment."

This wedding raiment nearly led to the demise of the species in the era of the plume hunters. The wood duck was shot in large numbers and the feathers used for everything from women's hats to artificial trout flies. In the early 20th century, few remained. A 1918 law placed the wood duck under total protection, and today the gorgeous birds are again relatively common.

Wood ducks inhabit bottomland swamps and open woodlands near ponds and rivers, ranging across much of North America from Canada to California and Florida. They nest locally in eastern Texas and are casual visitors to other portions of the state, particularly when they withdraw from the frozen North in winter. They often perch in trees and feed primarily on a vegetarian diet of seeds, acorns, berries and grain, with a few insects and other invertebrates for variety.

Above - A pair of wood ducks on a woodland pond.
© Photo by John L. Tveten

Courtship and pair formation begin in autumn and continue into spring. Once mated, a pair frequently returns to the site where the female has nested before. The nest is a bed of wood chips and downy feathers in a tree cavity, sometimes as much as 50 feet in the air.

The wood duck has made a remarkable recovery, thanks to carefully controlled hunting limits and to nest boxes erected in many parts of the country to replace hollow trees lost on timbered tracts. Today it is again possible to watch a pair of the beautiful ducks swimming amidst floating lily pads and basking turtles of a Big Thicket pond, lit by rays of sunlight filtered through moss-draped cypress trees. Leaping into flight, they zigzag through the forest, distinctive with their large heads and long, squared-off tails. The female's squealing call--a loud, rising whoo-eek --is truly a welcome cry out of the past.

Excerpts from The Birds of Texas by John L. Tveten with permission from Shearer Publishing, Inc.

More Bird Facts The wood duck is a member of the Anatidae family, which includes ducks, geese and swans. There are 145 species in this family around the world, nearly half of them in North America. Forty-two duck species occur in Texas, but 9 are accidental. Wood ducks are known as perching ducks. They have sharp claws on their webbed feet for perching in trees. Wood ducks live along river and creek bottoms of hardwood forests and nest in the cavities of dead trees in old growth forests. They will also use artificial nest boxes. The male wood duck has a rainbow colored plumage, with two white finger marks on the sides of its head. The female is predominately brown with a white tear-drop around her eye. Juvenile males resemble the female. Shortly after breeding, most male ducks shed their bright feathers for a dull pattern known as the "eclipse plumage." During this period they can be difficult to distinguish from the female.

Hear Interviews with Experts Wood Duck Restoration Wood Duck Nest Boxes Please note that the following audio files were encoded several years ago at a 14.4 modem speed. The poor audio quality is due to the technology at the time and not your computer. Wood Duck Populations on the Rise Protecting Wood Duck Nest Boxes Observing Wood Ducks at the WMA