Wood Duck Aix sponsa

Identification Tips:

• Length: 13.5 inches Wingspan: 28 inches
• A medium-sized duck with a long crest on head
• Long-winged and long-tailed
• Blue-green speculum with white rear border

Adult male alternate:

• Alternate plumage worn from Fall-through early summer
• Red bill
• Red eye
• Green head
• Striking white stripes about face and crest with a large white throat patch and "fingerlike" extensions onto cheek and neck
• Chestnut breast and neck with vertical white stripe at lower margin
• Golden flanks bordered above by a white flank stripe
• White belly
• Iridescent dark green-blue back and wings

Adult male basic:

• In basic plumage, the male resembles the female, but often retains the distinctive neck patch and red bill

Adult female:

• Gray bill
• White teardrop shaped patch around eye
• White throat
• Gray-brown head and neck
• Gray-brown breast stippled with white and fading to a white belly
• Dark brown back

Juvenal plumage:

• Gray bill
• Female similar to adult female
• Males similar to adult females, but with white neck patch

Similar species:

Adult male is unmistakable. Female, immature and eclipse males are nondescript, but distinctive in face pattern, shape and speculum pattern.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.

Above information used courtesy of United States Geological Survey.