Wood Duck

About the wood duck

The wood duck, also called the Carolina duck, is a medium-sized perching duck native to North America. Linnaeus described it in 1758 under the name Anas sponsa, working from an illustration and account of the "summer duck" of Carolina published a few decades earlier by the English naturalist Mark Catesby. In 1828 the German naturalist Friedrich Boie moved the species into a new genus, Aix, which it shares with the Asian mandarin duck. No subspecies are recognized.

A typical adult runs 47 to 54 cm (19 to 21 in) in length, with a wingspan of 66 to 73 cm (26 to 29 in) and a weight between 454 and 862 grams (16.0 to 30.4 oz) — roughly three-quarters the length of a mallard. The male carries strikingly iridescent, multicolored plumage, red eyes, and a white flare running down the neck. The female is far plainer, marked mainly by a white eye-ring and a whitish throat. Both sexes have crested heads, and both show an iridescent blue-green speculum bordered in white on the trailing edge of the wing. The male's call is a rising whistle, rendered "jeeeeee"; females give a drawn-out, rising squeal — "do weep do weep" — when flushed, and a sharp "cr-r-ek, cr-e-ek" as an alarm call.

Wood ducks are partially migratory. Northern populations move south for the winter, wintering in the southern United States near the Atlantic coast, while birds in parts of the species' southern range stay put year-round. On the Pacific coast the pattern differs: about 75% of wood ducks in the Pacific Flyway do not migrate at all. Their striking plumage has also made them popular in waterfowl collections outside North America, and escaped birds have periodically established temporary, non-self-sustaining populations in Great Britain.

Behavior and diet

The wood duck gets its name from an odd habit for a duck: it perches and nests in trees. Sharp claws — unusual among ducks — let it grip bark and branches, and it typically nests in cavities close to water, though it readily takes to nesting boxes placed in wetlands. Competition for cavities is stiff; birds of prey and mammals such as gray squirrels vie for the same holes, sometimes pushing wood ducks to nest as far as a mile from water. Females line the chosen cavity with feathers and soft material, and the height above ground offers the nest some protection from raccoons, owls, and hawks.

Egg-laying usually begins between February and April. A female typically lays seven to fifteen eggs, incubated for roughly 28 to 37 days (an average of about thirty). When nest boxes are set too close together, females sometimes lay in a neighbor's nest — a behavior called nest dumping — which can leave a single nest with thirty eggs or more and a poor chance of successful incubation. The day after hatching, the precocial ducklings climb to the cavity opening and jump to the ground, sometimes from as high as 50 feet, landing safely in water or on soft leaf litter below. The hen then calls them to her and leads them to water, where they can already swim and feed themselves. In the southern part of its range, the wood duck can raise two broods in a single season — the only North American duck known to do so.

Feeding is done by dabbling at the surface or grazing on land rather than diving. Wood ducks are omnivores, taking mainly berries, acorns, and seeds, along with insects; they can crush swallowed acorns in the gizzard. Predators include great horned owls, American mink, raccoons, red and gray foxes, American alligators, and black rat snakes.

Range and habitat

The wood duck breeds in wooded swamps, shallow lakes, marshes, ponds, and creeks across the eastern United States, the west coast of the United States, adjoining parts of southern Canada, and the west coast of Mexico. In recent decades the breeding range has pushed further into the Great Plains, and most breeding today happens in the Mississippi alluvial valley.

Outside its native range the species has become a minor concern rather than a curiosity: it is considered an invasive species in England and Wales, alongside the mandarin duck, and releasing either species into the wild there is illegal. Genuine vagrants may also occasionally reach Western Europe, with records from Cornwall, Scotland, and the Isles of Scilly, though the wood duck's popularity in captivity makes it hard to prove any individual sighting is a truly wild bird.

Conservation status

The wood duck is rated Least Concern. That was not always the case: severe habitat loss and market hunting — for meat and for feathers destined for the ladies' hat trade in Europe — drove the species into serious decline through the late 19th century, and by the start of the 20th century wood ducks had become rare across much of their range. The Migratory Bird Treaty of 1916 and the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 changed that trajectory: enforcement of hunting rules and protection of woodland and marsh habitat let populations start rebounding in the 1920s, and the spread of nest boxes from the 1930s onward gave the recovery a further boost, even though boxes are generally less effective than natural, hollow, dead trees.

The species remains a popular game bird today — it is the second most commonly hunted duck in North America, after the mallard — and hunting limits are set by flyway: two birds per day in the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways (raised to three for the 2008–2009 season), two in the Central Flyway, and seven in the Pacific Flyway. Expanding North American beaver populations have also helped the wood duck indirectly, since beaver activity creates the kind of forested wetland habitat the species favors. In March 2026, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation naming the wood duck the state's official duck, citing a population of roughly 100,000 birds in the state as a conservation turnaround.