Hummel Nature Trail Project

Hummel Nature Trail Duck Habitat

Cailen Schaffer of Troop 74 is completing his Eagle Scout project at the Hummel Nature Trail by installing duck habitat boxes. These boxes will provide safe nesting areas for ducks and help support the local ecosystem, leaving a lasting benefit for both wildlife and the community.

Wood Duck
The wood duck is Pennsylvania’s most brilliantly
colored duck, Its scientific name, Aix sponsa, can be loosely translated as “a waterfowl in a wedding dress.” This somewhat-secretive bird is home in brushy swamps and bottomland streams surrounded by woodlands. Nicknames include Carolina duck, squealer, summer duck and woodie. Most authorities place the species with the dabbling ducks, a group distinguished by its habit of feeding on and near the surface of shallow waters, rather than diving for food. The primary range for wood ducks is deciduous forest habitats from the eastern Great Plains east to the Atlantic coast, and from the northern Great Lakes Region south to the Gulf of Mexico. Most of them winter from the Carolinas south to the Gulf and west to eastern Texas. A small population of wood ducks also inhabits the Pacific Northwest. In Pennsylvania, woodies are common migrants in March and April; summer breeding residents; common migrants in September, October, and early November; and occasional winter residents in the southeast and southwest corners of the state.

Mallard

The mallard, Anas platyrhynchos, is the most common duck in the United States, North America and the Northern Hemisphere. It is among the best known and most widely recognized of all wildlife. The species possesses the largest breeding range of any bird on the continent, nesting across Canada and Alaska south to California, New Mexico, Kansas, Ohio and Virginia. Taxonomists recognize seven races. The mallard may have been the first domesticated bird, and from it have sprung all domestic duck breeds except the barnyard muscovy. The mallard is known as a “puddle” or “dabbling” duck. It frequents shallow, marshy habitats, where it obtains plant and animal food on and near the water’s surface, feeding by dabbling with its bill in the shallows and by hoisting its tail in the air and stretching its neck and head underwater. Like all puddle ducks, the mallard can spring directly into the air when taking off. It does not need to run across the water’s surface to build up speed as diving ducks must.

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