Wood Duck

Wood Ducks are now common across most of eastern North America and along the Pacific Coast. They are resident in the West, and migratory elsewhere, many wintering in southeastern United States. They also occur across all of southern Canada, the northern Great Plains. and in scattered areas of the interior West.

In the 1800s, Wood Ducks were common. But their numbers plummeted due to over-hunting, deforestation, and loss of wetlands. Many people thought this elegant duck would be extinct by the early 1900s. The Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918 came to their rescue as did bans on hunting until 1941. Populations rebounded. Today hunters prize Wood Ducks, comprising about 10% of the ducks taken in the United States (Hepp and Bellrose 2013). These photos are of one male and two females taken on 17 June 2019. They inhabited a beaver pond at McClane Lake near Olympia, Washington.