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Wood ducks are the most abundant resident wild ducks in Florida. Males are brightly colored, while females are a muted gray brown.
Wood ducks prefer wooded wetlands, streams or swampy areas; they feed on floating mast, fruit and seeds of water tupelo, oaks and cypress. They are unusual among ducks in that they are hole nesters. A shortage of nest cavities limits their nesting, but fortunately these ducks readily use nest boxes.
The recovery of wood duck populations is one of North America’s conservation success stories. In the early 1900s the species was almost extinct. Destruction of bottomland hardwood swamps and hunting had decimated wood duck populations across the eastern USA. The recovery began with the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918, which prohibited the hunting of wood ducks nationwide. The wide-scale use of artificial nest boxes also contributed to the wood duck’s recovery and populations rebounded; hunting seasons reopened in 1941.
I found this one in my backyard Lake Wales, Florida.
Male mallard; Drottningholm Palace pond.
Anas platyrhynchos (Mallard / Ánade real)
The mallard is the world’s most widespread duck and a model species in many biological research areas. It is also an economical important game species with a yearly hunting bag of 4.5million ducks in Europe alone.
The mallard is the most common and numerous duck in Sweden. The overall size of the breeding population in Sweden is about 200.000 pairs.
Pär Söderquist: "Ecological and genetic consequences of introductions of native species: the mallard as a model system"
Thank you, my friends, for all the views, faves and comments.
Ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis)female.
Wildwood Nature Preserve, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
good morning - i wish you a great start into the week.
we will get it hot this week in germany - ough!
There are now about 7,000 Mandarin Ducks in Britain, and other populations on the European continent, the largest is in the region of Berlin. Isolated populations exist in the United States. The habitats it prefers in its breeding ranges are the dense, shrubby forested edges of rivers and lakes. It mostly occurs in low lying areas, but it may breed in valleys at altitudes of up to 1,500m (4,900ft). In winter, it can be seen in marshes, flooded fields and open rivers. In its introduced European range, it lives in more open habitat than in its native range, around the edges of lakes, water meadows and cultivated areas with woods nearby.
Kaczka mandarynka pływająca po stawie w Parku Ujazdowskim./
Mandarin duck floating on a pond in Ujazdów Park - Warsaw
Since my previous outing in Hawrelak Park was so productive, I decided to give it rerun honors and was not disappointed because I came across two more duck species I had not encountered before. After much ado, I believe this to be a Lesser Scaup male, simply because the highest point of the head seems to be at the rear of the head (reverse true for the Greater Scaup) and because we see purple iridescence on the head which we would not (according to my sources birding.about.com/od/identifyingbirds/a/scaupidentificati...) on the Greater Scaup. Nothing in life ever is easy and one of the markings, the black nail at the front of the bill extends beyond the nail which is a sign for a Greater Scaup. However, since this was seen in a fairly small pond and not in coastal waters, that also points to the Lesser Scaup. But, really, I’ll let the experts make the final call on this and may end up revising the title and the byline. Some people find it exciting to research and find out what actually it is you got a picture of; I’d much rather take a picture and know what it is (gives you way more time for concentrated beer consumption). Regardless, I was happy to be able to run across him and he seems to have a bit of a dreamy expression, possibly caused by the female being in the area and he’s wondering perhaps perhaps perhaps.
Wikipedia: The wood duck or Carolina duck (Aix sponsa) is a species of perching duck found in North America. It is one of the most colorful North American waterfowl.
The birds are year-round residents in parts of its southern range, but the northern populations migrate south for the winter.[9][10] They overwinter in the southern United States near the Atlantic Coast. 75% of the wood ducks in the Pacific Flyway are non-migratory. They are also popular, due to their attractive plumage, in waterfowl collections and as such are frequently recorded in Great Britain as escapees—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, Scotland 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. There is a small feral population in Dublin.
Conservation status: Least Concern