Wood Ducks
by David Holyoke, Friends of Eastern Neck
You will never forget the first time you see a male Wood Duck in breeding plumage. When I came across one at a local pond as a new birder, my first thought was. “That can’t be real.” As I got closer and saw that it was moving, I decided it must be an escapee from some exotic bird breeder.
Just to be sure, I looked through the duck section in my birder’s field guide – and there it was. A male (drake) Wood Duck is one of nature’s masterpieces. It is among the most beautiful birds of North America. Their dramatic coloration is the product of thousands of years of selective breeding; not by humans, but by female (hen) Wood Ducks.
These ladies find spectacularly-colored plumage to be very attractive. Over the years, those fortunate males who possessed the most vibrant coloring were successful breeders more often than their less ornate rivals. As a result, their distinctive plumage genes were passed along as well.
Wood Duck Hens are beautiful too, but in a more subtle way. Since they are more vulnerable to predators while keeping their eggs warm, and tending to their chicks, their survival requires camouflage. They look almost like a black-and-white photo of the drakes.
Wood Duck nesting behavior is another intriguing aspect of these birds. True to their name, Wood Ducks nest in trees; more specifically, tree cavities like the ones used by woodpeckers. Prospective parents will search for a tree cavity anywhere from two feet off the ground, up to nearly 60 feet from the ground.
While this nesting strategy offers extra protection against predators, it presents a dilemma for fledglings. How do you get from such a high perch to your preferred aquatic habitat when you are not yet able to fly? One might assume that momma duck carries them off to the nearest body of water. In reality, the chicks use the claws at the ends for their webbed feet to climb up from the feather-lined floor of the cavity to the exit hole.
They then look out on the rest of the world for the first time, somehow knowing that they must work up the courage to jump. (The Smithsonian channel has a wonderful video of this momentous day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHl7N-Gj9QU)
The rest of this article goes into more detail on the life and times of Wood Ducks, especially those whose summer home is the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge (ENNWR). The refuge sits at the confluence of the Chester River and the Chesapeake Bay in Eastern Maryland. There I have the joy of maintaining almost 30 Wood Duck nest boxes as a volunteer for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
The Maryland Wood Duck Initiative, an all-volunteer group led by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, provides materials and guidance for my work. I, in turn, provide them with an annual survey of Wood Duck breeding activity in the refuge. My results are compiled with reports from other volunteers to give the big picture of the success or failure of Wood Duck breeding across Maryland.
It is interesting to note that the Kent County coordinator for the Wood Duck Initiative is an avid hunter, as are the volunteers who build the boxes. It may sound like a major conflict of interest for a birdwatcher to be working with an organization whose members will hunt the very birds he is nurturing. I personally have no issues with this relationship. Many of those who hunt and fish have a deep appreciation for nature, and are deserving of the title “Conservationist.” As long as there is a significant net gain in individual ducks (i.e., the population gains more birds in a given year than the number harvested by hunters) this is a win-win. In addition, waterfowl hunters, through the purchase of Federal Duck Stamps, have helped directly conserve over six million acres in the National Wildlife Refuge System since 98 percent of the price goes directly to conservation. I believe these types of partnerships, with seemingly opposing desires and needs (e.g., hunting vs. birding), are the only sustainable solutions to our environmental (and political) issues.
A Deeper Dive into Wood Duck Biology
Habitat
The Wood Duck (Aix sponsa for you Latin speakers) is a species of perching duck. Wood Ducks need areas with suitable tree cavities for nesting. They prefer sheltered ponds, rivers, swamps, or areas with standing water among trees.
Diet
Wood Ducks are categorized in field guides as dabblers. Dabblers feed from the surface of the water, submerging their heads to find tasty morsels; typically plant life and aquatic invertebrates. The dabbler classification is misleading however, since Wood Ducks also feed on land, searching out acorns and other seeds (The other main duck category is Diving Ducks. They use their superb diving skills to catch prey while swimming underwater.)
Nesting Behavior
Wood Duck couples may raise two broods in a year. Wood Ducks sit on their eggs for about a month, and care for their young for another two months. Chicks hatch ready to face the world, alert and with a full coat of down.
Migration
Wood Ducks are found throughout the United States, Southern Canada, Northern Mexico, and Cuba. Depending on the location, they may be year-round residents, or migratory. Migratory Wood Ducks find their soulmates prior to the breeding season each year, then travel together to the breeding grounds, where they remain from April to October. Migratory birds will make their way back to their summer homes once the last chicks are self-sufficient.
Our Eastern Neck Island population is migratory. Banding programs have revealed that they may travel as far as Florida; a 1,000 mile journey! You might wonder how migratory ducks are able to find their way to the breeding grounds and then back to their summer homes. Research has shown that they use a variety of means, including landmarks, the position of the sun and, like ship captains of old, celestial navigation.
Wood Ducks are well adapted to annual migration, being strong fliers who can reach speeds of 30 miles per hour.
My home state of Maryland has the good fortune of hosting young Wood Duck families during the breeding season. As I enjoy the ducks, I think about the people at the other end of the migration path, hoping that they care for them as deeply as we do here in Maryland. Migration corridors also need to be managed to meet the birds’ needs on the journey. Perhaps no entity does more to ensure that necessary habitat is preserved than National Wildlife Refuges, managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The National Wildlife Refuge System maintained by FWS includes 95 million acres of land, and 760 million marine acres .
The National Wildlife Refuge System: Quietly Working to Help Ensure the Survival of Wildlife
The National Wildlife Refuge System was founded in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt. As part of their stewardship responsibilities, FWS administers 571 wildlife refuges across the United States and territories. They do so despite decreasing funding when considering inflation) and a loss of over 800 employee positions since 2011. Volunteers are increasingly important for meeting refuge maintenance needs, and many refuges are supported by community organizations such as “Friends” groups that help with fund raising, advocacy, and project support.
The wildlife refuge system has played a critical role in Wood Duck conservation, as discussed in the following excerpt from the American Bird Conservancy website (see https://abcbirds.org/bird/wood-duck/): “The recovery of the Wood Duck is an inspiring conservation success story, as notable as the return of the Bald Eagle, Brown Pelican, and Osprey.
The drastic declines in Wood Duck populations noted by hunters and birders at the turn of the century were due to the wholesale destruction of bottomland hardwood forests, this duck’s primary breeding and wintering habitat. Uncontrolled market hunting was another major contributor to the Wood Duck’s close brush with extinction.
Fortunately, the enactment of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918 led to a moratorium on Wood Duck hunting across the United States. This prohibition lasted until 1940, after populations had recovered to sustainable levels. The use of artificial nest boxes, started in the 1930s, also helped to boost Wood Duck numbers. Additional legislation, including the Pittman-Robertson Act (officially known as the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937) and, in 1989, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, supported wetland and waterfowl conservation projects across the country, and helped turn around Wood Duck populations.”
The Ducks Unlimited organization and the Duck Stamp program managed by FWS are great examples of hunters as conservationists. As a result of habitat conservation financed by the Duck Stamp program, waterfowl populations have increased by 18 percent over the last 50 years with duck populations increasing by 34 percent. Unfortunately, non-waterfowl populations have decreased by 33 percent (see https://www.stateofthebirds.org/2022/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/state-of-the-birds-2022-spreads.pdf)
Maintaining Wood Duck Nesting Boxes
Nest Box Architecture
Wood Ducks have been threatened by loss of habitat and competition with other cavity nesters. This prompted conservation-minded organizations to set up nest boxes to support breeding. These boxes are placed on posts in undeveloped areas near bodies of water. They include predator guards to keep snakes, rats and other animals from climbing the post to get into the nest. They are lined with nesting material, such as mulch, on top of which the hen places a layer of soft down she carefully plucks from her own body.
Nest boxes typically include a screen or mesh that goes from the top of the mulch to the entrance/exit hole, which helps the chicks climb out on the day they fledge. Finally, the boxes have a large door on one side that the volunteer uses to monitor activity and perform maintenance. You could reasonably argue that providing nest boxes makes Wood Ducks dependent on humans. In my view, since humans were the cause of their near extinction, it is only right that we help them in any way we can.
The Annual Nesting Survey
After the ducklings complete their leaps of faith, the family makes no more use of the box, and the annual survey can begin. A volunteer will visit each box to evaluate the success of the box. By examining the detritus left behind, he or she can quantify the reproductive success rate.
Conducting the survey is a lot like opening gifts. You are never sure what you will find when you open the door. In addition to signs of a successful hatch, I have found very sleepy baby squirrels and unflappable screech owls. The surveyor does his or her detective work by observing the clues left behind, hoping to find round pieces of shell (end caps), or shell membranes that indicate that the chicks have successfully hatched.
If mother hen was spooked, killed by predators or otherwise incapacitated after laying her eggs, the surveyor will find whole, unhatched eggs in differing states of decomposition. The surveyor counts and discards them to clean up the box for next year. Or the surveyor may find nothing, indicating that, for whatever reason, the box was not used.
New surveyors are often surprised to find that a mother duck has laid a dozen or more eggs. The number of eggshells and/or unhatched eggs can even be double that due to a phenomenon known as brood parasitism or egg dumping. Some Wood Duck hens, it seems, are not ready for motherhood and lay their eggs in another hen’s nest, relinquishing all parental responsibilities.
Aside from the disappointment of an empty or failed box (unhatched eggs), other “lumps of coal” include angry wasps or ants which can require a hasty retreat from the box.
Wood Duck Hunting
According to Cornell University, Wood Ducks are second only to Mallards in the number of ducks harvested by hunters every year. Before forming an opinion about hunting, it is important to consider that we humans need to consume plants and animals to live. Eons ago, the simple creatures from which we evolved discovered that eating other organisms provided more quick energy than absorbing directly from the sun. This “energy food” enabled animals to be mobile; a huge advantage in the competitive struggle to survive.
While some may be opposed to hunting, it is an intractable part of the human experience. For many centuries, hunting was key to our survival as a species.
Hunting today is, for the most part, a sporting activity rather than a survival strategy. We have largely delegated the harvest of animal protein to farms, slaughterhouses, and agribusiness. We are still killing lots of animals, but the killing is done behind-the-scenes. Whether we do something directly, or it is done on our behalf, we are still responsible for the act. For this reason, I accept hunting as part of who we are as a species (as long as the harvested animals are consumed as food).
Non-hunters may not be aware of some of the hunting etiquette that makes the hunt challenging and a bit more of a fair fight. Hunters will not ambush ducks in the water or on the ground.
They will only fire upon a duck in flight. To be successful, they must know where the ducks will likely come in for a landing, which is dependent on the direction and force of the wind. A good spot during a west wind will yield nothing if the wind is coming in from the east.
Governmental controls on hunting include restricting the hunter to two shots without reloading. Many of the finest shotguns only hold two shells, and a duck hunter with more ammo capacity will be in big trouble if the natural resources police find him or her with more than two shells in the gun. Hunters must also only use non-lead shotgun shells so as to prevent unintended lead poisoning in the water.
Hunters also are quite versed in identifying different birds by their call (known to birdwatchers as “birding by ear.”) They also can identify species visually from afar. This is important to them because some duck meat is better than others and there are strict limits on the number of different species and sex that one is allowed to harvest per day.
Diving ducks, which feed on fish and other marine animals can fishy tasting meat. Dabblers, who feed primarily on plant life in shallow water, are the birds of choice for fine dining. Among the dabblers, Wood Ducks are especially prized for their meat. Duckcommander.com ranked them at number two in its top 10 ducks for eating, classifying the meat as “tender and juicy, no wild taste to speak of, great in any application.” It is another reason why hunters are highly motivated to ensure that Wood Ducks thrive in the wild.
Conclusion
It is wonderful to see that efforts to avert the extinction of the Wood Duck species have been a great success. The National Wildlife Refuge system has been a huge part of the success and needs our continuing support. There are many ways in which you can help:
- Join a Friends group for a National Wildlife Refuge close to you: https://www.fws.gov/program/friends-partnerships
- Volunteer at a National Wildlife Refuge: https://www.fws.gov/volunteer-opportunity
- Buy Duck Stamps: https://www.fws.gov/service/duck-stamps
- Let your congressman or woman know that you support National Wildlife Refuges
- Volunteer to maintain Wood Duck boxes:
https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/pages/MWDI/index.aspx
Resources
The following are useful resources for learning more about Wood Ducks and conservation efforts:
- The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBIRD: https://ebird.org/home
- Maryland Ornithological Society: https://mdbirds.org/
- Maryland Wood Duck Initiative: https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/MWDI/index.aspx
- North American Bird Conservation Initiative: https://www.stateofthebirds.org/2022/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/state-of-the-birds-2022-spreads.pdf
- Information about Wood Ducks: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/overview#
- How Hunters and Artists Helped Save North America’s Waterfowl
- Wood Duck Migration: https://explorer.audubon.org/explore/species/1471/wood-duck/migration?sidebar=collapse
- DNR Photos https://www.facebook.com/MarylandDNR
- How Ducks Navigate: https://www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-research-science/how-ducks-navigate)
