The drake wood duck is the most colorful of North American ducks. The brown hen has similar features including a crest, distinctive white eye-ring, white belly and purplish-blue iridescence on wing coverts and speculum. Both sexes have a prominent tail that can be a field mark in flight.

As their name implies, they are associated with timbered wetlands, nesting in cavities and sometimes even feeding in trees. Hens utter a fairly wide range of un-duck like sounds, but most common is a loud wee-e-e-e-k, wee-e-e-e-k.

It is a regular breeder in the Willamette Valley, along slow reaches and backwaters of the Cascade and Coast Range rivers, lakes, and ponds, and along the Columbia River and coastal counties.

Hear the call of the wood duck

Photo by Jones