Wood Duck - a bird that's dressed for Christmas By Jay V. Huner |
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Cardinals and chickadees are amongst the most common birds found on Christmas cards, decorations and ornaments. The brilliant red of the cardinal and black and white contrast of the chickadee speak to the joyous winter holiday season. However, the stunningly beautiful drake Wood Duck is probably the bird most commonly associated with Christmas by folks oriented to the out of doors. According to the late Professor George H. Lowery, Jr. "... the Wood Duck is North America's most beautiful bird. Its color pattern is resplendent with rich chestnut, splashes of black and white, golden flanks, and even red eyelids arranged amid iridescent greens, purples, and bronze...." Both the drake and the hen have distinctive crests but the hen's colors are muted compared to the drake. Still, the hen is a very handsome bird with a distinct white ring around the eyes to offset the gray-crested head. The Wood Duck is a permanent resident of our Piney Woods. You will find them almost anywhere including pools in the smallest of creeks, flooded bottoms including baygalls, stock watering ponds in pastures, beaver ponds, etc. It is not rare to find Wood Ducks joining Mallards, Muscovys, and Peking Ducks in parks much to the delight of folks bringing bread to feed the ducks. Wood Ducks can give you quite a start when they burst from cover with wings flapping and squealing their high pitched call described by Professor Lowery as hoo-eek, hoo-eek. I recall, as a child, that the old timers called Wood Ducks "squealers". But, don't be confused by the tree ducks in rice country that are often called Mexican squealers. There is no comparison in terms of the calls of the two birds. Wood Ducks are about two-thirds the size of the common Mallard. Like Mallards, they are dabbling ducks that tip up, tail in the air, to find food on the bottom of shallow water bodies. However, like all other dabbling ducks, Wood Ducks can dive deep into the water when frightened. I once surprised a small flock of Wood Ducks in a south Louisiana slough. They dove below the surface and several seconds later, they burst through the surface in full flight! That's when I learned that one should not shoot a shotgun sideways in a Cajun pirogue. The ducks survived their scare and I somehow managed to stay dry as the boat came close to tipping over. Wood Ducks are very common these days, but this wasn't always the case. Wood Ducks nest naturally in cavities in trees, sometimes next to or in water, but sometimes some distance from any water bodies. Clear cutting of forests in the late 1800s and early 1900s reduced natural nesting cavities dramatically. Then, too, anyone who likes to eat wild duck will confirm that the Wood Duck is one of the most tasty waterfowl so hunting pressure was intense. The Wood Duck's habit of roosting in large flocks in small areas during winter months made it very vulnerable to nefarious folks who cared nothing about conservation. Many were easily killed. And, the golden flank feathers are coveted by fly fishermen for trout and salmon flies, selling for as much as several dollars each! Fast forward to today and we now have hunters arguing with waterfowl biologists about limits for Wood Ducks. For as long as I can recall, the limit has been two Wood Ducks per day. The biologists have been unable to estimate population numbers of Wood Ducks because the ducks are seldom seen in the open from the air planes used to census ducks. It is clear that Wood Duck numbers are very high compared to the mid-1950s thanks to strict enforcement of bag limits and a very aggressive Wood Duck nest box program throughout the country. Wood Ducks readily build nests in boxes constructed for the purpose. In fact, anyone who spends time in the out of doors has encountered these boxes. In this region, Wood Ducks begin to nest by late February and may re-nest once or twice before fall. The hens line the bottoms of their nests with breast feathers and may lay 10 or more eggs. Sometimes more than one hen may lay eggs in a nest and 30 to 40 eggs may be found in a nest. This is called "nest dumping" and all eggs will die. Once the ducklings hatch, they jump out of the cavity or nest box, flutter to the ground and follow their mother to the nearest water. I once saw a hen Wood Duck lead her brood from a tree in my Baton Rouge neighborhood over half a mile to a pond in our subdivision! When the hen is raising her brood and there is danger, she will flutter away from the ducklings to lead a predator away. The ducklings hide until the mother returns to where she left them. Wood Ducks are not the only cavity nesting ducks in this region. Two other ducks, the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck and the Hooded Merganser, use Wood Duck nest boxes. But, that's another story. Jay V. Huner |
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