AGILE QUACKERS—

This male (rear) and female Wood Duck found the roof of my hopper, bird feeder an attractive place to munch some lunch recently.

The lady wood ducks are adept at clinging to the roof of the feeder and extending their necks to the lower feeding trough for a bite of bird seed. Well, they are birds—after all.

But, I have yet to see the male successfully execute that maneuver.

He seems to prefer the less strenuous task of browsing for his lunch on the ground.

The ornithology folks at Cornell University describe the woodies thusly; “A colorful duck of wooded swamps and streamsides, the Wood Duck is one of only a few North American ducks that nest in trees. Many people consider it to be the most beautiful of all waterfowl.”

“These ducks will nest in trees, sometimes up to ½ mile from a shoreline,” they continue.

“After hatching, the ducklings jump down from the nest tree and make their way to water. The mother calls them to her, but does not help them in any way. The ducklings may jump from heights of up to 290 feet without injury.”

I have one, very active, nest box on the pond so the three additional nesting pairs of woodies loitering around here this Spring likely will do their family chores in the nearby, towering trees.

While naturally skittery, with chicks these ducks are very, very private. Mallards, for example, will deliver their new broods to nibble under the bird feeders but it is a rare pleasure, indeed, to even see a new family of woodies.

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Ref: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/wood_duck/lifehistory

Photo notes: This picture was done through a double-pane patio door at a distance of some 50 feet from the feeder with a 200mm, digital lens. Combining that lens’s inherently shallow depth of field with its widest aperture threw any imperfections of the glass totally out of focus so the photo only suffers a mild degradation of sharpness.