BLACK DUCKS AND WOOD DUCKS

      Part of each winter for several years, up to 24 black ducks have rested, along with Canada geese, mallard ducks and common merganser ducks, on a slow-moving, half-mile stretch of Mill Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  That part of Mill Creek is flanked on one side by a thin, riparian woods that shades the creek and offers low-hanging limbs that shelter those ducks and geese on the water.  The other side of the creek is bordered by cow pastures where the geese graze on grass.  

     Black ducks appear black on ice and snow, particularly from a distance.  They are ruggedly handsome ducks that exhibit much stamina.  They are robust, and have layers of dense feathering, as all waterfowl do, that shields them from cold water and air.  And black ducks are particularly wary, quick to fly away at the least hint of potential danger.  

     Like their close cousins, the mallards, black ducks "tip-up" in shallow water to feed on aquatic vegetation.  But in winter they also fly to harvested corn fields with mallards and geese to shovel up golden kernels of corn on the ground.  And, when they have to, all those birds push their shovel-like beaks into shallow snow to get that nourishing grain.  

     Black ducks traditionally nest on the ground in shady woodlands in northeastern North America.  They are dark to blend into those duckling-rearing habitats.  And black ducks winter in Atlantic coast salt marshes where they feed on grasses and seeds.  But they currently adapted to wintering on inland creeks, and human-made impoundments, large and smaller, in the Mid-Atlantic States.  There they rest in flocks of their own between feeding forays in nearby agricultural areas.     

     A small group of wood ducks arrives on Mill Creek early in March.  Those darkly-feathered wood ducks overlap with the black ducks there, doubling the dark duck beauty on that waterway.  Black dusks and wood ducks both evolved in the dark forests of eastern North America and share those woodsy habitats to this day.  

     Black ducks on Mill Creek, and blacks throughout the Middle Atlantic States, will winter there for a couple more weeks before pushing north in mid-March to their nesting areas in woods in New York, New England and eastern Canada.  But the wood ducks will stay along Mill Creek, and other such habitats, to look for nurseries in tree cavities and nest boxes erected especially for them near water to hatch young in.       

     Drake wood ducks are darkly-beautiful in their many-colored feathering, green crests and red irises.  Female woodies, however, are mostly gray all over with a light ring of tiny feathers around each eye.  Woody hens are camouflaged so they are better protected from predators when raising equally-camouflaged ducklings.  Both genders of adult woodies are dark because they traditionally live and rear offspring along streams in eastern woodlands.      

     Each female woody, followed by her beautiful mate, flies among nest boxes attached to trees or poles, and holes in larger trees to find a vacant one she can lay about 12 eggs in.  Woodies are small, lithe ducks that easily maneuver among limbs below woodland canopies.  

     Wood ducks have ample competition for nesting hollows, among them being barred owls and raccoons.  But, seemingly, most female woodies find a hollow to safely hatch her brood.       

     Black ducks and wood ducks along Mill Creek in March offer much beauty and intrigue to that waterway.  Every year I like to visit that stream to see those two kinds of lovely ducks before the blacks leave and the woodies become secretive while rearing youngsters.

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