Wood Duck Teaches Me a Lesson

November 6, 2022 ~ The day was cool and breezy and partly overcast. Following up on a tip from photographer Linda Murdock, I went looking for adventure at Resoft County Park, in Alvin TX.

Resoft County Park, in Alvin Texas
Yellow star marks the location of Wood Ducks

Resoft is 20 miles south of the center of Houston as the crow flies, located on the original “main road to Freeport”, State Hwy 35 South. The attraction here for birders is the elongated rainwater retention pond with a series of islands built up in the middle. Trees on the islands include Bald Cypress and Chinese Tallow, which support a lively rookery in the spring. The cypress have contributed a growing bank of hefty roots and “knees” that protect the edges of the sand and clay islands from serious erosion. As the trees on the islands have matured, they’ve created dark sheltered spaces under their branches, and as the water has lapped at the sandy soil it has eroded from around the large tree roots and emerging knees, creating solid low perches under the overhanging canopy.

Adult drake (male) Wood Duck, perched on woody root
1/2000 sec. f/5.6 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR
(Click on any photo once to enlarge in a new window; close that window to return here.)

I had circled the pond twice, peering into the deeply shaded areas under the trees, and never saw this amazing duck. A park employee, seeing me with my camera obviously interested in birds pointed me in the right direction. Sure enough, there in the dappled light was the unmistakable Wood Duck, Aix sponsa.

Deceptively plump-looking drake Wood Duck
1/2000 sec. f/5.6 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

Once I had spotted one, I could see that there were at least two males along the water line. This one managed to sit in a spot of sunlight, giving me a preview of his glorious colors. At 87 feet away, he was small and dark in my lens, and I hoped for better. He has a very round body when seen on land, but in the water, is graceful and beautifully tailored. He is smaller than a mallard or teal.

Drake Wood Duck speeding across the pond
1/1600 sec. f/10 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

There is no simple description for the elaborate plumage of this drake Wood Duck. He has a crest of feathers extending down the back of his head and off the nape of its neck. His face and head are iridescent green that shifts to iridescent purple in the right light, sharply marked by white geometric arcs spreading upwards from his white neck. His wings, folded neatly across his back, appear black, but have wide bands of subtle iridescent blue and/or purple down their length.

Wood Duck dabbling at the water
1/1600 sec. f/10 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

He has a petite bright red bill, marked with white shading and a central black line down the bridge to the black nail. The upper bill edges are bright yellow and red and are raised in a V shape peaking at a fine white eyebrow line over the crown of his head. The Wood Duck eats acorns, seeds of moist-soil plants, land and water vegetation and aquatic insects. Roughly 80% of his diet is plant material, so his bill is specialized for grabbing acorns and seeds and cutting bulbs from wetland plants to swallow in pieces.

Wood Duck squeezing the water out of a mouthful of food
1/1600 sec. f/10 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

And there’s more. Mahogany chest with a radiating “shower of stars” pattern. Tan tweed wings edged in crisp black and white arcs. Maroon flanks accented with very fine coppery whiskers marking the base of the tail. I was glad to have seen him out of the water, so that I could admire the continuation of the clean white shoulder line down towards his stomach.

Adult female Wood Duck in tree, April 2022
1/2500 sec. f/6.3 ISO 500
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

A pair was seen by other birders for several days in mid-April this year at Cullinan Park in south-west Houston. I only got this fuzzy photo of the female over 100 feet away; the male was well-hidden behind the tree trunk, and wading through the swamp to get around to his better side was not on the agenda. The female has very muted colors, but her white chin and white-teardrop eye, along with a less pronounced version of the male’s crest, make her fairly easy to identify. In this shot, you can also see her strong toes and sharp nails. Wood Ducks do roost in trees, and they use nest holes made in dead trees by other tree-hollowing birds, though they don’t excavate their own nests. The 1-day-old babies climb up out of the nest hole using those strong claws, and then they drop as much as 30 feet to the ground to follow their mother’s calls toward water. All About Birds says remarkably few are injured in the fall.

Wood Duck showing lamellae along bill edges
1/2000 sec. f/20 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

The drake’s eye has a bright red iris and a bold red orbital ring. (The female has a brown eye and yellow orbital ring, though you can’t see it in my fuzzy photo.) In this photo, you can see his lamellae, the teeth-like points lining the edges of his upper and lower bill. These allow him to release a mouthful of water while sieving bits of plants and bugs from the water. And, if you look carefully, just to the left of the long black and white arcs at his flank, you can glimpse the tiniest triangle of bright blue. It’s a peek at his blue secondary feathers, those along the trailing edge of his wing next to his body, visible from above when he spreads his wings.  

Wood Duck range map, courtesy of All About Birds

Wood Ducks are common in major areas across the US and northern Mexico. They are here along the upper Texas Gulf Coast all year, so I should be able to spot them again, now that my eyeballs know what to look for. They typically produce two broods of ducklings each spring and summer. Though land development tends to remove the large diameter standing tree skeletons in which they would normally nest, they are quite comfortable in a variety of nest boxes, so their population is still robust.

The lovely feathers I saw were bright and new, and I wondered why they would look so pristine at the end of the year, after the trials and tribulations of raising not just one, but two broods of young. During my research, I found photos of adult male Wood Ducks in “eclipse plumage”, and went to the Encyclopedia Britanica for their article on Anseriform (waterfowl, or ducks) life history:

When the female duck begins to incubate, the male generally deserts her and joins forces with other males, often after making a molt-migration to another area some distance from the breeding site. The nuptial plumage is lost, and a dull “eclipse” plumage, rather femalelike, is assumed before the simultaneous molt of the flight feathers. The resulting flightless condition lasts three or four weeks, during which the birds skulk in thick cover or remain on large bodies of water. 

This is the first bird I’ve learned about that has a simultaneous molt, losing all its flight feathers at once, instead of in a sequential molt where symmetrical pairs of feathers are lost and replaced along the right and left sides of the bird. I must have been asleep during bird school: ducks, anhingas, geese, loons, and grebes, all have a simultaneous molt. They replace all their flight feathers at once during (for the males) or just after (for the females) nesting, then replace all their body feathers in a second molt in the fall or early winter to don their nuptial (breeding) colors. So, when identifying ducks, I need to be aware of juvenile, adult female, adult male eclipse and adult male nuptial plumage differences.

Wood Duck headed back to the island for a nap
1/1600 sec. f/10 ISO 1000
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR

The Wood Duck sashayed away from me in his natty “going on a date” plumage.

An hour sitting on the bank of a city park pond with my camera has unexpectedly spilled over into learning about a whole new aspect of avian life. Watching birds, I never know what new discoveries will thump me on the head. I feel like Newton with his apple. Clonk!