Clear Lake is known for its abundance of bird life. The lake is home to a wide variety of waterfowl which includes many different species of ducks and geese. Many of the birds migrate to the lake each fall and spend the winter months here. One duck that tends stay here in Lake County year around and is considered the most beautiful duck of all is the wood duck.
The wood duck’s behavior is unusual because it’s the only duck that nests in trees. At one time the wood duck population was so low that it was feared they would become extinct, but conservationists created wooden nesting boxes and the population has recovered and they are now common throughout the United States.
The male wood duck is one of the most colorful and recognizable birds in the country. It has at least six different colors on it body. The top of the head is a purplish-green color. The sides of the face are black with a white stripe. The chest is a dark red and it has a blackish tail and back.
The males use these bright colors to attract females during the breeding season. They breed from April until August. The females build nests in cavities of trees or in the wooden nesting boxes placed by volunteers. Wood ducks have strong claws on their feet that allows them to grip the bark of trees and move around among the branches. The female lines the nest with down feathers that she takes from her breast.
The Clear Lake State Park has a number of wooden nest boxes scattered throughout the park. The nesting area is usually near water but can be as far as a mile away. A female can lay a many as a dozen eggs and it often produces two broods a year. The incubation period is from 25-35 days. The young leave the nest within a few days after being hatched. The mother flies down to the water and calls for the chicks. They will jump out of the nest and land on the ground near the water. What is amazing is that the chicks have been known to drop from as high as 50 feet and land unharmed. They are protected by their thick down cover. Once the chicks leave the nest they don’t return and spend the rest of their young lives with their mother. When they are a year old, they will leave their mother and brood and strike out on their own. Wood ducks feed on insects, seeds, green vegetation and even acorns. Wood ducks feed by dabbling, similar to mallards. They are strong fliers and can reach speeds of 30 mph. One trait that woods have is that the female will often lay her eggs in another wood duck’s nest and leave them to be raised by the other female.
The main predators of the young chicks are raccoons, fox squirrels, minks, opossums and rats, which raid the nests. Nest boxes have allowed populations to increase in many areas, and they provide better protection from weather and predators than many natural tree cavities. Typically, a wood duck will live about four years in the wild. The oldest recorded wood duck was a male and he lived 22 years, 6 months.
Wood ducks are hunted during the waterfowl hunting season, although only a few are killed by hunters because they tend to be in very small flocks and they don’t hang around other ducks such as mallards and pintails.
At Clear Lake, wood ducks can be seen at the Lakeside County Park, the Clear Lake State Park and the Anderson Marsh. Wood ducks can also be seen at Highland Springs, Indian Valley Reservoir and Lake Pillsbury.
