The drake Wood Duck may be the most beautiful duck in North America — an iridescent helmet of green and purple swept back into a crest, red eye, white face straps, and burgundy chest, like something painted rather than hatched. Hens are elegant in gray-brown with a white teardrop around the eye. True to the name, they're ducks of wooded water: quiet river bends, swamps, and beaver ponds.
Wood Ducks nest in tree cavities, sometimes fifty feet up, and day-old ducklings answer their mother's call by leaping from the hole and bouncing unharmed on the forest floor. Nearly wiped out by 1900, they recovered on the strength of regrown forests and hundreds of thousands of volunteer-built nest boxes — Michigan marshes are full of both.
Acorns are a signature food, swallowed whole from flooded oaks, along with seeds, aquatic plants, and berries; ducklings start on insects. They'll forage on dry forest floor more than any other Michigan duck.
Yes — at one day old, unable to fly, they leap from cavities up to 50+ feet high, fluff-bouncing on landing, and follow the hen to water. It looks alarming and is completely normal.
Mount it on a pole with a predator guard, over or near quiet water, with 3–4 inches of wood shavings inside (hens bring no nest material). Clean it out each winter.
Wooded, quiet water: river oxbows, beaver ponds, flooded timber, and marsh edges from April through October. They flush early with a rising squeal — approach slowly and scan ahead.
The peak falls from April through October, when the population is at its highest. The full window runs from March to November, with birds scarce at both edges.
They jump. Within a day of hatching, the ducklings climb to the cavity entrance and leap — sometimes from fifty feet or more — bouncing unharmed on the ground below before following the hen to water. Young males look like females until midwinter.
Yes — they form rafts on quiet backwaters and are notable for large fall roost flights, when hundreds pour into a wooded swamp at dusk. Away from those roosts they are usually seen in pairs or small parties.
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