The Wood Duck..A Graceful Duck

The Wood duck is the most graceful of any of the wild ducks, and have most strange nocturnal habits, nightly visiting every stretch of water along the wooded streams and ponds for miles around their habitat.

They also make a flight nearly every afternoon to some adjoining stream or lake, always preferring those surrounded by timber. They do not pay much attention to decoys, but sometimes will fly by the blind within gunshot.

I have reason to believe that they return to the same locality to nest each successive season.

A gentleman I know has both the wood duck and the mandarin duck of China in his large collection of game birds. I have had an opportunity to compare their plumage. Of course I slightly favor the American bird as a matter of patriotism.

Each bird is beautiful in a different way in the same manner that one flower is handsome and another one equally so. The mandarin duck's plumage is a blending of different shades of brown, while the wood duck's general coloring is mostly of darker tints.

Excellent live specimens of both species may also be seen at Lincoln Park, Chicago.

The wood duck is a very swift flier and on occasion can go through the timber at a high speed when flushed along some wooded stream.

They love to frequent bends in the rivers and creeks rather than straight stretches of the streams and invariably nest in trees.

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