Wood Duck
Conservation status
Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Vertebrate Class: Aves Order: Anseriformes Family: Anatidae Genus: Aix Species: A. sponsa
Binomial name
Aix sponsa Linnaeus, 1758
Nesting (light green), wintering (blue) and year-round (dark green) ranges of A. sponsa.

The Wood Duck or Carolina Duck, Aix sponsa is a medium-sized perching duck. 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. It shares its genus with the Asian Mandarin Duck. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1024x683, 771 KB) Wood Duck, St. ... The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that species continuing to survive either in the present day or the future. ... Image File history File links Status_iucn3. ... Least Concern (LC) is an IUCN category assigned to species or lower taxa which do not qualify for any other category. ... Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. ... Animalia redirects here. ... Classes and Clades See below Male and female Superb Fairy-wren Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata (within the phylum Chordata), specifically, those chordates with backbones or spinal columns. ... “Aves” redirects here. ... Families Anhimidae Anseranatidae Anatidae †Dromornithidae †Presbyornithidae The order Anseriformes contains about 150 species of birds in three families: the Anhimidae (the screamers), Anseranatidae (the Magpie-goose), and the Anatidae, which includes over 140 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. ... Subfamilies Dendrocygninae Thalassorninae Anserinae Stictonettinae Plectropterinae Tadorninae Anatinae Aythyinae Merginae Oxyurinae and see text Anatidae is the biological family that includes the ducks and most duck-like waterfowl, such as geese and swan. ... Aix is a genus that contains two species of dabbling ducks: Aix sponsa (Wood Duck) Aix galericulata (Mandarin Duck) Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) Categories: Ducks ... In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal method of naming species. ... Carolus Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as  , (May 23, 1707[1] – January 10, 1778), was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist[2] who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of nomenclature. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 370 pixels Full resolution (1357 × 628 pixel, file size: 46 KB, MIME type: image/png) Ареал на Aix sponsa Светлозелено - район на гнездене Синьо - район на зимуване Тъмнозелено - район на уседнал начин на живот (не напускат района целогодишно) Verbreitungsareal von Aix sponsa hellgrün - Brutgebiet blau - Winterquartier dunkelgrün - ganzjähriger Aufenthalt Habitat of Aix sponsa Light Green - nesting area Blue... The perching ducks were previously treated as a small group of ducks in the duck, goose and swan family Anatidae, grouped together on the basis of their readiness to perch high in trees. ... Binomial name Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 Subspecies See Mexican Duck, Anas, and article text The Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos[1]), also known as the wild duck, is a dabbling duck which breeds throughout the temperate and sub-tropical areas of North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. ... World map showing the location of Asia. ... Binomial name Aix galericulata (Linnaeus, 1758) 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. 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 however somewhat shy and skittish. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Freshwater marsh in Florida In geography, a marsh is a type of wetland, featuring grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, cat tails, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water. ...

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". They prefer nesting over water so the young have a soft landing, but will nest up to 150 yards 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 word incubate in the context of birds refers to the development of the chick (embryo) within the egg and the constant temperature required for the development of it over a specific period. ...

Male in eclipse plumage

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. 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 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. 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 Scilly Isles 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. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1166x754, 160 KB) Summary This is a male Wood Duck in eclipse plumage. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1166x754, 160 KB) Summary This is a male Wood Duck in eclipse plumage. ... Red counties show the core of East Texas; pink and red counties may or may not be included in East Texas, and thus their inclusion varies from source to source. ... The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one_fifth of its surface. ... Not to be confused with Surry. ... Binomial name Aix galericulata (Linnaeus, 1758) The Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata), or just Mandarin, is a medium-sized perching duck, closely related to the North American Wood Duck. ... Cornwall (Cornish: ) is a county in South West England, United Kingdom, on the peninsula that lies to the west of the River Tamar and Devon. ... The Isles of Scilly (Cornish: Ynysek Syllan) are an archipelago of islands off the Cornish coast. ...

These birds feed by dabbling or walking on land. They mainly eat berries and seeds, but also insects, making them omnivores. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

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. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999...

Landowners as well as park and refuge managers can help encourage Wood Ducks by building and monitoring suitably placed 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. ...

References

• BirdLife International (2004). Aix sponsa. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List and Red Data List), created in 1963, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species and can be found here. ... The World Conservation Union or International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Aix sponsa

• Animal Diversity Web: Wood Duck call
• 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 gBird Atlas