Birdwatching Wood ducks like the high life

Published 10:09 am Tuesday, April 5, 2016

The wood duck is one of our most magnificent looking waterfowl! It is a small tree duck with iridescent feathers. It almost looks ornamental.

The male wears purple, brown, black, white and blue. It has a red-brown breast flecked with white, and buffy yellow sides, and its head is glossy green and purple with white stripes. Both the male and female sport drooping crests and long tails. The female wood duck isn’t quite as gorgeous as the male, but is beautiful in her own right. She has a white eye-patch shaped like a teardrop. Overall, she is a dull brown, but shows small areas of blue and purple and white.

The wood duck’s beautiful plumage was part of the reason it was once hunted to near extinction. Luckily, new management programs put in place in the early 20th century were so successful that wood duck numbers began to recover.

Being a tree duck, the wood duck perches in trees. It nests in cavities, and like many other cavity nesters, it takes readily to a nest box. It prefers to be at least 30 feet above ground, but will nest as high as 65 feet. However, it will also nest lower. Young wood ducks leave the nest quite soon after hatching and jump from the nesting cavity to the ground or water. Preferred nesting sites are located in or near wooded swamps, woodlands near ponds, or fresh water marshes where it can find vegetation, snails, salamanders, tadpoles and insects to eat.

The wood duck is an uncommon, permanent, resident on the Peninsula and in the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. It is most likely living high at Beards Hollow, Cape Disappointment, and in any of the wooded, swampy areas and marshes in the Refuge.

Once seen, this beautiful waterfowl will always remain etched in your memory and become one of your favorite birds!