Wood Duck

The wood duck might be the most striking waterfowl species on the continent — iridescent green-and-purple head, red eye, white throat strap, chestnut breast flecked with white. Hens are subtler but still elegant, with a white teardrop around the eye that's diagnostic in flight. They're cavity nesters: hens drop their clutches in tree hollows, often over water, and the ducklings free-fall to the ground their first morning out of the egg.

Wood duck populations crashed in the late 1800s from market hunting and the loss of bottomland hardwood forest. The federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 closed hunting on them entirely for nearly two decades. Recovery — driven by the treaty, by nest-box programs that gave hens artificial cavities, and by reforestation of bottomland swamps — is one of the conservation success stories of 20th-century American wildlife management. Modern populations are robust enough to support hunting across most of their range.

They're early-season birds. Woodies move at first shooting light through flooded timber, beaver ponds, and creek bottoms, and they're usually back on the roost before the late-morning duck hunters get going.