- See also Australian Wood Duck. The Australian Wood Duck or Maned Duck, Chenonetta jubata, is a Dabbling duck found throughout much of Australia.
| Wood Duck | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Male Wood Duck Aix sponsa
|
||||||||||||||
| Conservation status | ||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Aix sponsa Linnaeus, 1758 |
||||||||||||||
 Nesting (light green), wintering (blue) and year-round (dark green) ranges of A. Carl Linnaeus (Latinized as Carolus Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as, May 23 new style (13 May old style 1707 who laid the foundations for sponsa.
|
The Wood Duck or Carolina Duck, Aix sponsa is a medium-sized perching duck. The perching ducks ( "Cairininae" or "Cairinini") were previously treated as a small group of ducks in the Duck, Goose and A typical adult is about 19 inches in length with an average wingspan of 29 inches. This is about three-quarters of the length of an adult Mallard. The Mallard ( Anas platyrhynchos) probably the best-known and most recognizable of all ducks is a Dabbling duck which breeds throughout the Temperate It shares its genus with the Asian Mandarin Duck. The Mandarin Duck ( Aix galericulata) or just Mandarin, is a medium-sized Perching duck, closely related to the North American Wood Duck
The adult male has distinctive multi-colored iridescent plumage and red eyes. The female, less colorful, has a white eye-ring and a whitish throat. Both adults have crested heads. When swimming, wood ducks bob their head back and forth in a jerking motion, which makes them easy to spot.
Their breeding habitat is wooded swamps, shallow lakes, marshes or ponds in eastern North America, the west coast of the United States and western Mexico. A swamp is a Wetland featuring temporary or permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water In Geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of Wetland which is subject The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. They usually nest in cavities in trees close to water, although they will take advantage of nesting boxes in wetland locations if available. Their personality is shy and skittish.
Females typically lay between 9 and 14 eggs. However, if nesting boxes are placed too close together, females may lay eggs in the nests of their neighbors, which may lead to nests which may contain as many as 40 eggs and unsuccessful incubation, a behavior known as "nest dumping". Incubation is the process by which Birds hatch their eggs, and to the development of the Embryo within the egg They prefer nesting over water so the young have a soft landing, but will nest up to 150 yards (140 m) away from the shoreline. The day after they hatch, the young climb to the nest entrance and jump to the ground. The baby ducks can swim and find their own food by this time.
The birds are year-round residents in East Texas and other southern parts of their range, but the northern populations migrate south for the winter. East Texas is a distinct geographic and ecological area in the U They overwinter in the southern United States near the Atlantic coast. They are also popular, due to their attractive plumage, in waterfowl collections and as such are frequently recorded in Great Britain as escapes - populations have become temporarily established in Surrey in the past but are not considered to be self-sustaining in the fashion of the closely related Mandarin Duck. See also Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain (Breatainn Mhòr Prydain Fawr Breten Veur Graet Breetain is the larger of the two main islands Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The Mandarin Duck ( Aix galericulata) or just Mandarin, is a medium-sized Perching duck, closely related to the North American Wood Duck Given its native distribution the species is also a potential natural vagrant to Western Europe and there have been records in areas such as Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly which some observers consider may relate to wild birds; however, given the Wood Duck's popularity in captivity it would be extremely difficult to prove their provenance one way or another. Cornwall ( Kernow ˈkɛɹnɔʊ is the most southwesterly county of England, on the Peninsula that lies to the west of the River Tamar
These birds feed by dabbling or walking on land. They mainly eat berries and seeds, but also insects, making them omnivores. Omnivores (from Latin omne all everything vorare to devour are species that eat both Plants and Animals as their primary
The male's call is a rising whistle; the female gives a whistled whoo-eek if startled.
The population of the Wood Duck was in serious decline at the beginning of the 20th century as a result of over-hunting and loss of suitable nesting sites. Changes in game laws and the construction of nesting boxes in suitable habitat resulted in this species' return to sustainable numbers.
Landowners as well as park and refuge managers can encourage Wood Ducks by building Wood Duck nest boxes near lakes, ponds, and streams. Fulda, Minnesota has adopted the wood duck as an unofficial mascot, and a large number of nest boxes can be found in the area. Fulda is a city in Murray County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 1283 at the 2000 census.
References
- ^ BirdLife International (2004). Aix sponsa. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List) created in 1963 is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 20 August 2007.
External links
- Animal Diversity Web: Wood Duck call
- Wood Duck
- BirdLife species factsheet
- IUCN Red List
- Summer or Wood Duck by John Audubon
- Wood duck information page from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
- Wood duck information and photos from South Dakota Birds and Birding
- Plans for building and positioning Wood Duck nest boxes, from the USGS
- Massachusetts Breeding general editsBird Atlas
- Wood Duck videos on the Internet Bird Collection
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic