She is most easily identified by a distinctive teardrop-shaped, white eye patch. Although males and females have many notable differences, including distinguishably different voices, the males and females look almost identical during the eclipse stage of their molting cycle. Wood ducks can be found in eastern North America from southern Canada to the southern coast of the United States as well as along parts of North America s west coast. Woodland streams or pools, forest bottomlands, wooded wetlands, river valleys, swamps, marshes, lakes, creeks and river edges are all typical wood duck habitat. Wood Ducks are one of the only species of ducks that nest in cavities.
Wood ducks are dabblers or surface feeders.
Their diet consists mainly of aquatic plants, supplemented with aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates, seeds, acorns, berries, and grains. Their courtship process begins in the fall and continues throughout the winter and into the spring. Yearling males tend to pair later in the season than older males, and unlike other duck species, female wood ducks breed during their first year. The pair remains monogamous for the breeding season. Female wood ducks lay one egg each day until the clutch is complete.