Waterbird in Bridal Dress                                                                           

Mark Wetmore & Jeanette Williams                   

                                                                                                                  
Wood ducks are among our most beautiful waterfowl. According to the literature, the species’ scientific name, Aix sponsa, means "waterbird in bridal dress."                                                                            
They depend greatly on artificial nest boxes to maintain their population.
In the late 1800s and the first few decades of the 20th century, their numbers declined tremendously due to unlimited hunting and habitat loss. Like most hole-nesting birds, their competition for nest sites is agonizingly difficult as they compete with aggressive, expanding populations of non-native species within shrinking habitats.
Unregulated hunting was generally stopped by 1920 and in the ‘30s the use of artificial nest boxes began. Now the population of wood ducks has rebounded and they have expanded their range to less wooded habitats, such as many places in the eastern Dakotas.
In South Dakota wood ducks generally nest between mid April and June. Like most waterfowl, the precocious young follow their mother to water quickly after hatching and accompany her in a tight family group. (According to the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior, the imprinting of many downy young waterfowl on their parents is especially striking. “While on the nest, females initiate low calls, and the young, still in the egg shell, call back.”)
This March 8th we mounted a home-made wood duck box at the edge of a two-acre pond in Union County. The box was based on a simple design available at an Iowa Department of Natural Resources web site (listed below). We walked around the pond on the ice and hung the box on a dead tree which will be standing in water during the spring. It was attached using a large screw eye in the back of the box and a hook screwed into the tree. (Local conservation officers may also be able to provide a limited number of free, plastic boxes under a program cosponsored by Ducks Unlimited.)

The USGS site is a good introduction to the birds and their conservation and the Iowa site has the simple nest box plan.

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/woodduck/index.htm#contents

http://www.iowadnr.com/wildlife/files/FMAFeb01.html#top