The ducks will eat whatever is available, but they will not hesitate to change their diet if something they desire more is in season. The wood duck is 90 percent herbivore and 10 percent carnivore. A mature wood duck s diet consists of fruits, nuts, wild grapes, acorns, wild rice, duckweed. Wood ducks also feed on waste grain and will forage wheat and corn stubble. A wood duck may tip-up for a fallen acorn but rarely dives for a meal.
Wood ducks swallow their food whole and temporarily store it in the crop.
The food then passes to the gizzard where it ground up by little stones. In time, the wood duck will swallow small stones so the process can continue. The habitat of a wood duck has changed throughout the development of our country. Historically, the wood duck favored dense woodlands, slow moving creeks and rivers, and marshy bottomlands. Studies have indicated that when wood ducks are about to have their young, there is a preference towards the marsh environment.