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Wood ducks are among the most attractive and interesting migratory waterfowl.
They also are among the most entertaining.
In full mating trim, the male is a pallet of color and design with an iridescent green crown, red eyes, purple breast and white accents. The teardrop-shaped, white eye patch identifies the female at a distance.
"At a distance" is about as close as these birds prefer to get to people. Woodies are very shy.
You might paddle up in a canoe toward some fallen timber where a few adult and juvenile woodies are resting in the shade. All of a sudden, ducks are flying in different directions while they bombard you with a confusing chorus of shrill, repetitive, squawks.
A mother woodie will direct her young to crouch low in the water and scurry to cover along a bank while she squawks and splashes the water with her wings to take a would-be predator in another direction. Once the danger has passed, she flies back and calls out to her collect her babies.
Wood ducks are at home in wooded swamps, marshes and slow-moving streams. Mating is monogamous; courtship and pair formation begin in the fall. Females return and nest usually within a half-mile of where they were born.
Wood ducks were nearly extinct in the early 1900s, the victim of lost habitat and overharvesting. The birds are common now, thanks to decades of land conservation, hunting regulations and thousands of nesting boxes erected around the country.
As the photo above demonstrates, wood ducks will approach houses in search of food, so long as people aren't around. They're out of there as soon as a window opens or even if they sense movement inside a house.
Wood ducks nest in trees, so perching and hovering around a bird feeder isn't a problem.
Woodies feed on aquatic plants, invertebrates and a variety of seed. They really like safflower seed, and prefer going directly to the feeder. Awkward mallards are left to clean up the scraps that fall on the ground below.
These goofy birds remind me of my youth when a good time was seeing how many people you could stuff inside a VW Beetle.
How many wood ducks will fit on a bird feeder? We have five here with plenty of room to spare.
The future of wood ducks and many animals depends on how well we protect their wetland habitat. In January, lawmakers introduced two bills before the Indiana General Assembly that will determine the future of wetlands in the Hoosier state.
This is important. Learn. Get involved. Let your voice be heard. To learn more, go to www.wetlands.IN.gov.
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Stephen Sellers, editor
