Wood Duck (Aix sponsa)
Order: Anseriformes, Family: Anatidae
You can easily spot a male wood duck by his exquisite coloring. He has a white throat and chin and bright green and purple feathers. The female, like most female ducks, is more or less brown. She has a white patch on her throat, and a prominent white eye-ring. Male and female wood ducks have well-defined head crests and long, dark, square tails that help identify them in flight.
Wood ducks are some of the smallest ducks of all. They never weigh more than 2 pounds, and measure 17 to 20 inches in length.
They ride higher in the water than other ducks and are "dabblers," meaning they don't dive for food, but feed on the surface.
You can easily spot a male wood duck by his exquisite coloring. He has a white throat and chin and bright green and purple feathers. The female, like most female ducks, is more or less brown. She has a white patch on her throat, and a prominent white eye-ring. Male and female wood ducks have well-defined head crests and long, dark, square tails that help identify them in flight.
Wood ducks are some of the smallest ducks of all. They never weigh more than 2 pounds, and measure 17 to 20 inches in length.
They ride higher in the water than other ducks and are "dabblers," meaning they don't dive for food, but feed on the surface.
Related Content
 A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air. Years passed and the eagle gre...
|
 The ostrich is the largest living bird. Adult males stand nearly 8 feet in height and weigh between 140 to 230 pounds.
The ostrich is perfectly adapted to a mode of life that depends on running to escape predators.
It has evolved a cloven hoof consisting of only two toes, similar to that of the other animals that share its plain's existence.
|
 The Kuranda area of far north Queensland is a key zone for the endangered Cassowary, the birds around Cassowary House have raised 7 chicks since June 1998, with another male a couple of kilometres along the same road having a similar record and currently having 4 chicks. In January 2002 we had a new female appear, and occasionally join with the family group, though the regular female soon drives ...
|
![A Talk with Irene Pepperberg [Excerpt]](http://www.animals-pictures-dictionary.com/files/images/308.jpg) One of my students was cleaning up the laboratory; we recycle whatever we can, so she was collecting all the empty bottles, throwing them in a bin, separating out the caps and putting them on the counter where Griffin, an African grey parrot, was sitting. She called me over and said, "You told me that parrots are destructive foragers and that they don't really put things together, so come her...
|
 Order: Falconiformes, Family: Accipitridae The common black-hawk is found in the southwestern United States, throughout Mexico, Central America, and northern South America to Guyana. They can also be found in Cuba and The Isle of Pines.
Mass: 630 to 1,300 kg.
The common black-hawk averages 53 cm in length (21 inches) and has a wingspan of 127 cm (50 inches.) Like most other raptor species, common black-hawks are sexually dimorphic, wi...
|
 by David Rennie An army of 700,000 specially trained ducks and chickens has been mobilised to help fight China's biggest locust plague in 25 years. The birds, which are taught to pursue and eat locusts at the sound of a whistle, are part of a national campaign that includes 280,000 people backed by crop-dusting planes and special locust-killing micro-organisms imported from Britain. Swarms of locusts have d...
|
|
Add Feedback