I visited my most productive little birding pond, at Indian Riverside Park, late this morning and got a new bird for the blog, the sweet little Wood Duck.

This is not the full-on iridescent patterned breeding male but a young and/or non-breeding male, according to my online research. Cornell Lab: Wood Duck overview.

There were four Wood Ducks together on the pond. I think they are all non-breeding males, with the red eyes.

One seemed to be preening another.

Audubon.org: Wood Duck…

Beautiful and unique, this duck of woodland ponds and river swamps has no close relatives, except for the Mandarin Duck of eastern Asia. Abundant in eastern North America in Audubon’s time, the Wood Duck population declined seriously during the late 19th century because of hunting and loss of nesting sites. Its recovery to healthy numbers was an early triumph of wildlife management.

The map on the site shows they are common in all seasons in this area.

Wood Ducks! Bird 183 on the blog life list.