December Bird Forecast: What to watch for in December: Ducks

Lots of ducks of fifteen regularly occurring species are arriving to spend the winter here. If you need to walk off a holiday meal this month, take some time to look for some of these interesting birds in area retention ponds, lakes, creeks and the Colorado River. Lady Bird Lake, the river below Longhorn Dam at Pleasant Valley Road, the Roy Guerrero Metro Park overlook west of the playground off Grove Boulevard, the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory at the biosolids treatment plant, and Lake Travis – Bob Wentz Windy Point all have a variety of duck species. The ducks at the Mueller ponds at Southeast Greenway across from the Morris Williams golf course are somewhat accustomed to people, and the trail there is especially pleasant in late afternoon.

Two duck species in particular look like they are decked out for the holiday season. Both the male (or drake) Wood Duck and the drake Northern Pintail are spectacularly plumaged to attract the more subtly colored females (hens). Austin hosts Wood Ducks year round, but the pintails are only here for the winter. They both are the eye candy of the duck world in our area. If you prefer multicolored holiday lights, you’ll enjoy the colorful Wood Duck, with its green crest, red eye, red and white bill, chestnut breast, golden buff sides, and white highlights. If you like the clean, minimalist look of white lights, the elegant drake Northern Pintail will be more your cup of tea. Its white breast and white neck stripe emphasize its chocolate colored head, and it sports a slender grey body and long black tail.

The Wood Duck is well-named for its preferred habitat of small wooded ponds, as well as wooded swamps and creeks. It won’t typically be out in the middle of a large expanse of water. It is one of the few ducks that have webbed feet with claws for perching on tree branches where it can easily blend in with the scenery. Wood Ducks are adapted to flying through dense wooded areas unlike ducks of more open country.

In Austin breeding gets underway in mid-February. Wood Ducks usually nest in trees near water, but have been known to nest as far as a mile away from it. The hen selects a natural cavity while the drake looks on. She lines it with breast feathers and lays a clutch of six to sixteen eggs, at one per day usually. After an incubation period of twenty-eight to thirty-seven days the chicks hatch over a period of six to eighteen hours. Just one day after hatching the hen goes to the ground or water and calls her chicks with a kuk-kuk sound, and the ducklings leap from the nest cavity. (There is one record of a 226 foot drop; between two and sixty feet is the norm.) She leads them to water where they learn how to forage; the hen does not feed them. She also watches for danger and broods them in inclement weather for a few weeks. The hen and her brood stay together for a range of thirty-one to fifty-six days, with early season broods staying together longer. The drake does not take any part in raising the brood. It’s possible that its flamboyant colors could attract predators.

The Wood Duck is a dabbling duck, feeding from the water’s surface with its head and neck submerged and its rear end in the air. This behavior is called “tipping up.” The adult Wood Duck’s diet is about 80 percent plants, but they will eat caterpillars, snails and other invertebrates. Insects are the prime food source for very young ducklings.

Good spots to try for Wood Ducks in Austin are along Shoal Creek and Boggy Creek, the pond in Sheffield Northwest District Park, Circle Acres Nature Preserve and Camp Mabry.

The Northern Pintail is a dabbling duck with omnivorous tastes, eating aquatic invertebrates, snails, seeds of aquatic plants, and grains. Its core breeding range includes Alaska and the prairie pothole region of southern Canada and the Great Plains. It also breeds across northern Eurasia! While wintering here, pintails often gather in flocks of twenty to forty plus birds. As an early breeder they leave the Austin area by late February, so now is the time to enjoy them.

The pintail’s nickname is “sprig” referring to the male’s long tail feathers that remind hunters of plant stems. According to Allaboutbirds.org the longest nonstop flight of a pintail is 1,800 miles. A fairly reliable place to see them in Austin is at Roy Guerrero Park overlooking the river.

Fun Facts about Ducks

Ducks hitch rides on the north winds of fall. Their typical speed is 40-60 mph. A tail wind boosts that speed, and ducks take advantage to travel farther with less energy expenditure.

According to Ducks Unlimited, a leader in duck conservation, ducks typically migrate at an altitude of 200 feet to 4,000 feet. The documented record for highest North American altitude achieved by a duck is a Mallard over Nevada that collided with a plane at 21,000 feet!

Ducks have excellent eyesight. Their eyes are placed on the sides of their heads giving them an excellent field of vision, able to see in all directions at the same time. Their eyes are saucer shaped which allows sharp vision of both close and distant objects. No wonder it is hard to get close to them to get a better look. Their survival instinct kicks in since they are hunted throughout the country.

Ducks have around 12,000 different skin muscles which they use to control their feathers! Humans have 600 muscles. They use the muscles to fluff or compress their feathers to regulate temperature, dive for food, and engage in courtship or aggression.

Some species of ducks lay eggs in other ducks’ nests, leaving the foster parent to raise their ducklings. Many species of cavity nesters like Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, and Buffleheads participate in “egg dumping,” which is more scientifically called brood parasitism. Often this occurs because there is a shortage of available cavities. There are cases of Wood Duck nests with fifty eggs within; clearly they are not all one female’s. Sometimes those eggs are not even from the same species. Up north Hooded Mergansers may lay eggs in Wood Duck nest cavities for example. Other species besides cavity nesters use this strategy too. Sometimes hens don’t have enough body fat to both lay eggs and incubate them so they decide to lay their eggs elsewhere, gambling that maybe a few of their eggs will bear fruit. Brood parasitism has some negatives for the host hen in that her eggs may be pushed out, or not incubated well enough to hatch. The Redhead hen is considered the Parasite Queen, with healthy hens sometimes both parasitizing nests first, and then laying and brooding their own eggs. (Redheads winter all over Texas, with a large part of the total population wintering in the Laguna Madre where flocks of 60,000 have been counted.)

Compiled by Travis Audubon Volunteer Jane Tillman for KXAN

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