OUTDOORS: COOPERATIEVE EFFORT RETURNS WOOD DUCK TO POPULOUS POSITION IN MIDWEST

Our very own ducks don't quack. They whoeek.\

Mallards may show up on more post cards, ads and illustrations of generalized waterfowl, but principally the ducks that call middle-America home are the wood ducks.

Countless waterfowlers across the eastern and middle United States benefit from the beauty and bounty of the species during regular duck hunting seasons.

There was a time, however, that the wood duck, perhaps the most strikingly beautiful of all North American ducks, was on the verge of being counted out. In the earliest years of this century, it was an even-money bet that the wood duck was headed for extinction.

Previously abundant throughout more than half of North America, by 1905 it was estimated that the number of remaining woodies in the wild was less than the number in captivity in private collections. The species had flown to the brink of oblivion.

A combination of things threatened doom to the wood duck. Chiefly, the great American forest largely was put to the saw. As the woods came down in the name of development and lumber production, so did wood duck habitat. As an arboreal species, one that nests in cavities in trees, the large extent of deforestation of the United States eliminated the source of most new woodies. Their reproductive capacity was quashed.

Likewise, common "improvements" to the land included the draining of wetlands. This was a double whammy on woodies. If there's anything they need as badly as nesting trees, it's wetlands, the swampy sort of habitat that land users were improving out of existence.

Meanwhile, unregulated hunting, including market hunting for table meat and the gaudy feathers grown by wood duck drakes, further added depletion to the birds' plight.

The wood duck population finally caught a deserved break in 1913 when the federal government ruled out hunting for the species.

With increased protection, wood ducks hung tough in the coming decades. It was believed the species had increased in numbers as early as the 1930s, but the gains appear to have been modest.

The real resurrection of the wood duck didn't begin until the latter half of the century when it was determined that the loss in mature tree habitat could be somewhat offset by the placement of manmade nesting boxes in remaining wetlands. The proliferation of wood duck boxes began to gain steam in the 1960s and continues today.

This habitat augmentation has been one of the conservation community's biggest success stories. Wood ducks responded eagerly to the nesting boxes, man-helping-bird facilitates which have been laced throughout suitable habitat across the ducks' North American range.

Today, wood ducks have regained their status as the most populous nesting duck in the eastern United States. And with a variety on ongoing programs to furnish nesting boxes, new emphasis on preserving wetlands and continual close monitoring of populations and hunting regulations, the future looks bright.

Although it's often categorized for convenience sake with the puddle ducks, the woody is an altogether different critter, a perching duck.

Compared with the other large puddlers, the wood duck is a rather small bird. At about 18 inches long and 1 pounds, it's about three-fourths the length and a little more than half the weight of a mallard.

If it were much larger, the wood duck might have more of a problem finding nesting spaces. As it is, the natural wood duck hideaway for egglaying and brood-raising is most often an abandoned nest of the pileated woodpecker, a whopper of a woodpecker, but nothing that would excavate a hole big enough for, say, a fatbreasted mallard.

The fancy plumage of the drake woody is one thing that got the duck in trouble a century ago with feather hunters. The mature drake is the easiest to identify with his white-striped, crested head, white throat and dark chest and body. The hen, although she's a more drab grayish-brown, is distinctive from other ducks with her white eye patch.

Wood ducks don't talk the same language as other ducks, although they may chum around with them a bit. You'll pick out the woodies by their high-pitched squeaks which they use when startled, as when they're flushed off the water, or to call to other wood ducks.

Only Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida have early wood duck season, hunting privileges that remains experimental, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Early wood duck hunting is a game all its own. If nothing else, the hunter sheds the battle to keep warm, while he takes on other tasks like fending off mosquitoes and trying not to overheat.

Where to hunt wood ducks is a wide open consideration. Good wood duck shooting is liable to be found anywhere from small woodland ponds and creeks to major impoundments. Bottomland sloughs, meanwhile, are prime.

On small water, pass shooting seems to be the most plausible way to go about hunting woodies just get into an area through which woodies are flying and try to get a load of steel pellets out in front of one.

On larger waters, decoy spreads make much sense. Lacking a condensed skyline, decoys serve to entice woodies from farther away and will bring far more birds into range. Wood ducks may not decoy as readily as some species, but they certainly will buzz over fake blocks, even those of mallards, and some will hook right into the phony floaters.

Calling wood ducks in conjunction with the use of decoys seems to add only marginally more attraction. Squealer calls will lure some birds, however, and woodies will even occasionally swing by for a look in response to mallard quacks.

As dainty ducks, early woodies warrant shot that's smaller than what's commonly used when the general duck season is underway. Instead of No. 2s, the smaller diameter but fuller patterns of No. 3s or even No. 4s are preferable.

Steve Vantreese is outdoors editor of the Paducah Sun.