Wood ducks appear to have been colored by angels.
I remember as a kid heading toward a forest pond near my grandfather’s farm. A toy duck decorated in a fresh coat of paint glimmered like a rainbow.
I wanted to grab the toy, but it leaped off the water in sudden flight.
Grandpa told me what I saw was a male wood duck.
Angels brushed the male with its colors, my grandmother told me, which accounted for its heavenly splendor. Grandpa just nodded his head. You don’t argue with Grandma.
I learned that wood ducks commonly reside near forested ponds or marshes and swamps. City life, in later years, introduced me to wood ducks living on ponds at golf courses and city parks.
“Watch for a male wood duck perching on a low-hanging tree limb near a pond,” Grandpa advised.
Sure enough, that’s where I often find them. My wife and I recently saw a male perching on an oak tree limb over a pond at Landa Park in New Braunfels. Grandma’s words about its splendor echoed in my head.
Male wood ducks have a harlequin-patterned head with a blacktipped orange and white beak, a glistening red eye, bright white lines outlining a face showing deep iridescent violet with hints of green and brown, and a crown swept over with clover-green plumage that extends as a tuft of feathers behind the head.
The female, with a merely grayishbrown head, shows off a spectacular elliptical white eye ring that tapers like a teardrop behind the eye, as though a makeup stylist had given it a seductive visage.
A male will pair up with her in
autumn long before breeding season, as early as February. They’ll nest in abandoned woodpecker cavities, preferring those left by pileated woodpeckers, but will also nest in tree cavities created by torn-out limbs or inside nest boxes provided by people.
The female lines the nest with down from her breast and lays one egg a day for a clutch of about 10 usually white or tan eggs. She is the only species of duck in North America that can rear two broods per season.
Chicks are precocial when they hatch in about 30 days. Their mother surveys the ground for safety and calls to her chicks the morning after they hatch.
Ducklings ease out of the nest and, amazingly, jump down from an average height of 24 feet, which is higher than a two-story building. They then follow Mom to the nearest pond, where the males will be colored by angels.
Email Gary Clark at texasbirder@ comcast.net.