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12 Types of Ducks in Texas

By: Author April

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Whether you’re a bird spotter or a seasoned hunter, when it comes to duck varieties, there is no denying that Texas has a lot to offer.

From the Mallard and wood ducks of the north to the Redheads of the south coast and the Teal of the Gulf prairies and coastal marshes, the Lone Star State has something for everyone.

Between dabbling, diving, and sea ducks, there is a wide variety of ducks in Texas.

Whether it’s year-round residents or seasonal visitors, this great state provides the perfect landscape for ducks to thrive in large numbers.

In this article, we will look at the most common duck species found in Texas year after year and the more occasional visitors that are harder to spot. Read on to find out more!

1. Black-bellied Whistling Duck

Closeup of two black-bellied whistling duck

Description

The Black-bellied Whistling Duck is a medium to large-sized, high-spirited duck distinguished by its unusual, long-legged shape.

They have a brilliant red bill, a gray face with a white eye ring, a reddish-brown neck, breast, and back, and a black belly. Formerly known as tree ducks, their long, pink legs are easily observable while perched in trees.

The size and coloring of male and female black-bellied whistling ducks is almost the same.

If this duck’s pink legs and tall, erect body weren’t enough to give it away, it also has a high-pitched whistle, making it easily distinguishable from most other ducks. 

While flying, this bird displays a large white patch on its upper wings and frequently tilts its head downward.

Food

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks typically feed at night, and at sunset, they leave their roosts in search of food. While they have a mostly plant-based diet that includes smartweed, amaranth, and nightshade, they also eat insects and small aquatic animals like snails. 

Nesting

While Black-bellied Whistling Ducks sometimes nest on the ground, typically, tree cavities or decaying tree trunks are where you will find them. They don’t waste time building a nest there, either. They are usually satisfied with whatever their chosen tree hollow is like to lay their eggs in.

Black-bellied behavior

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks can be seen in flocks of around 1,000 birds as they are gregarious creatures. They court and find partners in winter, and females often use the nests of other Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks to lay their eggs.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Marshes
  • Nesting: Cavity
  • Weight: 28.8 ounces (816 grams)
  • Length: 18″ to 21″
  • Wingspan: 35″
  • Food: Mostly plant-based with insects and small aquatic animals
  • Clutch size: 9 to 18 eggs
  • Egg color: White
  • Egg size: Length 2.2″ Width 1.4″

2. Fulvous Whistling Duck

A fulvous whistling duck at Lake Apopka

Description

The Fulvous Whistling Duck is an outstanding-looking bird that stands tall with its long neck and legs.

It has a wonderful light reddish-brown body that seems to be a complete contrast to its easily distinguishable blueish-gray legs and bill.

This whistling duck is not to be mixed up with the Black-bellied Whistling Duck. While in flight, the underside of the Fulvous Whistling Ducks wings is very dark in color, and they have white tail feathers that form the shape of the letter “U.”  

Food

Fulvous Whistling Ducks are filter feeders who forage for food by extracting seeds from mud they have strained through their bills. Never too far away from the rice fields they love to feed on, these birds also eat invertebrates like earthworms and snails, but this part of their diet is mostly for their ducklings. 

Nesting

Both male and female Fulvous Whistling Ducks search the landscape together while looking for the ideal nesting spot in rice fields or marshy areas with vegetation such as reeds, rushes, or grasses.

After choosing the perfect spot together, they bend the surrounding vegetation to form a bowl shape. If the nest gets flooded, they will add grasses from the marsh to protect their nest from decaying.

Fulvous Behavior

After a brief pairing ritual, mating commences, and unlike most ducks, the male and female Fulvous Whistling Ducks stay together year-round.

During that year, they do everything in flocks. They can be found foraging, resting, and roosting together as their loud whistling calls echo from marshes and flooded rice fields.

While sometimes impatient, Fulvous Whistling Ducks lay their eggs even if the nesting area is not completed, and around mid-April, for a month or so, both partners incubate their eggs.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Marshes
  • Nesting: On the ground
  • Weight: 25.6 ounces (725 grams)
  • Length: 18″ to 21″
  • Wingspan: 36″
  • Food: Seeds and invertebrates
  • Clutch size: 2 to 44 eggs
  • Egg color: White
  • Egg size: Length 2.2″ Width 1.6″

3. Mallard

Mallard in flight with vegetation in the background

Description

Mallards are large, well-known ducks due to their unmistakable colors.

While male Mallards’ bodies are a mix of gray, brown, and black from their necks to their tail feathers, their heads have an amazing velvet green color that shines in the sun and a bright yellow bill to finish off their splendor. Females have a mottled brown finish all over and a brownish-yellow bill.

Food

Mallards are dabbling ducks that don’t dive for their food. Instead, they are often spotted with their tail feathers in the air as they tip forward in the water, looking for seeds and vegetation. 

But when it comes to mating season, Mallards consume insect larvae, earthworms, and freshwater shrimp, to name a few. They are common visitors to city parks and ponds looking for handouts from passers-by.

Nesting

Mallards look for nesting areas in pairs, and after locating a good spot, they will usually be found in long grasses or other vegetation as long as the nest is concealed and close to water.

While sitting on her nest, the female will pull chunks of whatever vegetation she can reach into the nest. And when egg laying begins, she will pull longer grass over herself and the nest to conceal everything.

Mallard Behavior

Because Mallards are heavily hunted in the wild, they are easily scared of people, but in a city, they are much less stressed thanks to people feeding them in the parks.

Interestingly, only female Mallards quack while the males produce a rasping sound. Another notable thing about these famous ducks is that they often live pretty long lives. Mallards have been recorded living up to 27 years old!

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Lakes and ponds
  • Nesting: On the ground
  • Weight: 35.3 to 45.7 oz (1000 to 1,295 grams)
  • Length: 19.8″ to 25.5″
  • Wingspan: 32.4″ to 37.3”
  • Food: Seeds and vegetation. Animal matter during mating season
  • Clutch size: 1 to 13 eggs
  • Egg color: Gray or greenish-buff
  • Egg size: Length 2.3″ Width 1.7″

4. Gadwall

Gadwall duck ( Mareca Strepera ) foraging in wetland

Description

While female Gadwalls have a strong resemblance to the female Mallard, males have an understated beauty when compared to others.

From head to tailfeathers, Gadwall ducks have subtle shades of brown, black, gray, and white blend together with perfection and elegance.

Food

Gadwalls occasionally feed on invertebrates like snails and water beetles, however, they mostly eat aquatic vegetation like algae, grasses, pondweed, and water milfoil. They have been known to steal food from diving ducks as they resurface also.

When it’s breeding season, Gadwalls eat much more animal matter, but this dramatically decreases during winter.

Nesting

During migration, Gadwalls form pairs, and when it comes to the breeding season, they select a nesting area from the air. The female will investigate the area on foot to ensure it’s the right spot.

Dense brush and tall grasses are the main requirements; water must be nearby before nesting can commence. 

The female will settle into a hollow she has scratched out for herself and then form a nest cup by grabbing twigs and leaves around her. For insulation, she will pluck her down feathers and place them on the nest cup.

Gadwall Behavior

During winter, you may find Gadwalls in freshwater and saltwater marshes, reservoirs with dense vegetation, beaver ponds, and streams. While moving in flocks, they choose wetlands with plenty of vegetation to feed in. 

Females usually find partners by the end of November, as courtship occurs mostly in the fall and early winter. During mating season, Gadwalls stay with one partner.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Marshes
  • Nesting: On the ground
  • Weight: 35.2 oz (997 grams)
  • Length: 19″ to 23″
  • Wingspan: 31″ to 36”
  • Food: Aquatic vegetation
  • Clutch size: 7 to 12 eggs
  • Egg color: Dull cream
  • Egg size: Length 2.3″ Width 1.5″

5. Northern Pintails

Beautiful shot of northern pintail ( Anas acuta ) duck standing on water

Description

Northern Pintails are pretty easy to spot while on the water. Just look out for the elegant males wearing what resembles an open gray jacket with a white shirt buttoned up to the neck and with their brilliant brown heads held high. And if that doesn’t catch your attention, the Northern Pintail’s signature tail feathers pointed in the air will.

The females are wearing an all-in-one intricate, scaled pattern in different shades of brown throughout their bodies.

Food

Northern Pintails eat grains such as rice, wheat, and corn, and they use their bills to scoop aquatic insects as they walk along the water’s edge of lakes and ponds. These dabblers also like to pick at aquatic plants, worms, and crustaceans; their long necks give them a clear advantage over other ducks, reaching up to 12” in the water.

Nesting

Northern Pintails like wetlands and croplands with short vegetation as their nesting places, and males and females choose the perfect spot together.

Unlike many other duck species, Northern Pintails nest further away from water and sometimes choose tilled croplands as a nesting area.

Females add grass and down feathers to a shallow bowl she scraped from the ground to lay their eggs on at the chosen location.

Northern Pintails Behavior

Northern Pintails are seemingly social birds that rarely have problems with other duck species. They spend as much time shuffling across the land as they do on the water, but they can also take to the air at a moment’s notice.

Northern Pintails migrate in groups, and while the female is incubating, the males get busy forming flocks ready to migrate.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Marshes
  • Nesting: On the ground
  • Weight: 36.2 oz (1,026 grams)
  • Length: 20″ to 26″
  • Wingspan: 29″ to 35”
  • Food: Aquatic vegetation, insects, and grains 
  • Clutch size: 3 to 12 eggs
  • Egg color: Greenish-buff
  • Egg size: Length 2.2″ Width 1.5″

6. Redhead

Redhead duck resting on grass near pond

Description

Fully grown male Redhead Ducks are easy to spot as they illuminate the lakes and coastlines with their bright copper-colored heads that contrast with their otherwise black and dark gray bodies.

Their exceptional appearance is complete with a blue-gray bill and black tip.

Redhead females and juveniles share the male’s uniformly brown plumage and similarly patterned black-tipped, blue-gray bill.

Food

While Redheads are classed as divers, they also seem to dabble a lot in shallower waters while searching for invertebrates and vegetation.

When they do dive, they don’t go to the same depth as other diving ducks when looking for food like green algae, hardstem bulrush, pondweed, and widgeon grass. 

Nesting

A Redhead couple will fly low over the marshes in the morning and evening to look for suitable nesting locations. Having found an appropriate location, the male waits nearby while the female swims into thick underbrush in search of a perfect nesting spot safe from predators.

While working alone, the female Redhead builds her nest upon underwater vegetation. She weaves a 3-inch-deep nest in a bowl shape from plants within her reach and insulates it using her breast feathers. The nest is an impressive 2 feet wide upon completion.

Redhead Behavior

These fast-flying ducks are very social creatures that don’t mind sharing feeding grounds with other species of ducks like Canvasbacks, Lesser Scaup, Northern Pintails, and American Wigeons. Sometimes they even work together as a mixed flock to find food.

Of all duck species, female Redheads are the most likely to lay their eggs in other duck species’ nests. Mallards, Canvasbacks, Northern Pintails, Gadwalls, and Northern Shovelers are some of her favorite targets.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Surface diver
  • Habitat: Lakes and ponds
  • Nesting: Floating
  • Weight: 43.3 oz (1,227 grams)
  • Length: 18″ to 22″
  • Wingspan: 19″ to 35”
  • Food: Aquatic vegetation and invertebrates
  • Clutch size: 7 to 8 eggs
  • Egg color: Pale buffy brown
  • Egg size: Length 2.5″ Width 1.7″

7. Common Merganser

Female common merganser swims along with her young mergansers

Description

The Common Merganser is one of the largest members of the duck family, but they are slenderer than Eiders or Goldeneyes, for example. Its narrow bill is its most significant feature compared to other ducks.

Male Common Mergansers are streamlined-looking birds with white bodies up to their necks but with a black stripe along their backs.

Their heads are a gorgeous greenish-black, which makes their bright red bills stand out even more.

Food

Common Mergansers are delightful diving ducks that love to feed mostly on fish but are also known to enjoy aquatic creatures like crustaceans and mussels, to name a few. Thanks to their serrated bills, Common Mergansers have a clear advantage over other ducks when searching for food.

Nesting

While searching for a nesting site, the female Common Merganser takes control and does it alone. She will usually choose a natural cavity in a tree around a mile from water and up to 100 feet in the air. 

Once she has chosen the ideal spot to nest, the female Common Merganser will scratch out a bowl shape in whatever wood chippings or old squirrel nests are lying around. Once she lays eggs, she will insulate the nest with her own plucked feathers.

Common Mergansers Behavior

Common Mergansers seem to have a relatively leisurely lifestyle. They spend much time floating, fishing, and even sleeping on the water.

You can also spot them in large groups at the water’s edge from time to time, playing what seems to be “follow the leader.” When one dives for food, they all do.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Surface diver
  • Habitat: Lakes and ponds
  • Nesting: Cavity
  • Weight: 60.8 oz (1,723 grams)
  • Length: 22″ to 27″
  • Wingspan: 31″ to 37”
  • Food: Fish and aquatic creatures
  • Clutch size: 6 to 17 eggs
  • Egg color: Creamy white or ivory yellow
  • Egg size: Length 2.6″ Width 1.9″

8. Red-breasted Merganser

Red breasted Merganser swimming on a lake

Description

A few striking details make the breeding male Red-breasted Mergansers’ appearance so unique.

Apart from the mohawk-style crest that sits upon their beautiful bottle-green heads, their red eyes and orange bill stand out in contrast.

From there, a white ring around their necks separates their green heads from their rust-colored chests that blend into their bodies’ black, white, and mottled gray.

Females and males outside of breeding season have a less colorful grayish-brown all over.

Food

With their serrated bill at the ready, Red-breasted Mergansers hunt for fish by diving or stalking just below the water’s surface.

Mergansers have also been known to work as a team by creating lines and trapping minnows in areas with only one exit point, giving easy access to an abundance of food.

Nesting

The female Red-breasted Merganser is given the sole right to choose a nesting spot to lay her eggs. While she usually goes for marshy areas, lakeshores, or coastal islands, the perfect spot will always have dense vegetation to cover her nest on the ground.

By scratching out a bowl shape on the ground, female Red-breasted Mergansers will then cover the area with dead grasses and insulate it with feathers plucked from their bodies.

Red-breasted Merganser Behavior

With legs positioned further towards their tail feathers, these birds are excellent, efficient divers. And while the position of their legs makes walking more difficult for them, don’t be fooled; these birds are not slow. When they are in full flight, these fast and furious birds have been recorded at 80 miles per hour!

Key information:

  • Behavior: Surface diver
  • Habitat: Lakes and ponds
  • Nesting: Ground
  • Weight: 47.6 oz (1,349 grams)
  • Length: 16″ to 26″
  • Wingspan: 31″ to 35”
  • Food: Fish and aquatic creatures
  • Clutch size: 3 to 24 eggs
  • Egg color: Olive buff
  • Egg size: Length 2.6″ Width 1.8″

9. Common Goldeneye

Two common goldeneyes in flight with blue skies background

Description

As the name suggests, the vibrant yellow eye color gives the Common Goldeneye its distinctive feature.

Apart from their eyes, they have stand-out features, like white cheeks and greenish-black heads. Their white chests and sides give way to black backs and tail feathers.

While both male and female Goldeneyes have black bills, the similarities pretty much end there. Female Goldeneyes are brownish gray with brown heads.

Food

Common Goldeneyes are not fussy when it comes to their diet. While aquatic invertebrates, fish, and fish eggs make up part of their food intake, crustaceans and mollusks, like crabs, shrimp, and crayfish, are also preferred, with vegetation like pondweed, spatterdock, and bulrush on the side.

Nesting

Tree cavities made naturally by broken branches or by Pileated Woodpeckers are among the favorite nesting places that female Common Goldeneyes are on the lookout for as they search without their male partners.

The chosen nesting spot comes complete with the necessary wood chips or squirrel nests needed for the female Common Goldeneye to lay her eggs. All she needs to add are some plucked down feathers used to insulate her nest.

Common Goldeneye Behavior

If the Common Goldeneyes’ distinctive physical features are not enough to recognize them in the wild, maybe you will hear them instead. In flight, they whistle through the air at up to 40 miles per hour!

These diving ducks congregate on the water in flocks of up to forty, and they often dive in synchronized pairs in search of prey. Capable of submerging themselves for up to sixty seconds, Common Goldeneyes swim very efficiently by streamlining their bodies and kicking with their feet.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Surface diver
  • Habitat: Lakes and ponds
  • Nesting: Cavity
  • Weight: Up to 46 oz (1,304 grams)
  • Length: 15.8″ to 20.1″
  • Wingspan: 30.4″ to 32.6”
  • Food: Aquatic creatures and fish
  • Clutch size: 4 to 9 eggs
  • Egg color: Bluish green
  • Egg size: Length 2.3″ Width 1.7″

10. Ruddy Duck

Ruddy Duck resting on a pond

Description

Male Ruddy Ducks, while breeding, are happy-go-lucky looking birds.

These ducks are pretty easy to recognize with their bright blue bills, black caps, white faces, and a body full of golden copper and chestnut brown.

Males put on a much less extravagant display outside of breeding season when they are a dull gray color in contrast.

Female Ruddy Ducks have similar makings and patterns to the males but in much less vibrant colors of grays and browns throughout their bodies.

Food

Ruddy Ducks are divers, but they don’t dive for fish. Males and females prefer aquatic plants, insects, crustaceans, and other invertebrates. But mostly, you will find them in shallow waters where they dive to the bottom and use their bills to strain mud and swallow what’s left behind.

Nesting

After finding a mate at the breeding ground, the female Ruddy Duck will eventually find a nesting spot to lay her eggs.

After finding an area she is comfortable with, usually somewhere with a lot of surrounding vegetation, she will build her nest a few inches above the water’s surface in bulrushes, cattails, or grasses.

The female will use dead or dry plants to form a strong base and a bowl shape on top. With her nesting area complete, Ruddy Ducks will usually incorporate a woven canopy overhead. 

Ruddy Duck Behavior

Ruddy Ducks tend to be aggressive toward their own species and others. And when it comes to breeding season, everyone had better watch out because the Ruddy Ducks’ bad behavior gets even worse.

This grumpy duck is a fast flyer but tends to be a little awkward in the air. If there is a predator on their tail, Ruddy Ducks prefer to escape by diving or swimming rather than flying.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Surface diver
  • Habitat: Marshes
  • Nesting: Ground
  • Weight: 28.4 oz (805 grams)
  • Length: 14″ to 16″
  • Wingspan: 21″ to 24”
  • Food: Aquatic creatures and vegetation
  • Clutch size: 3 to 13 eggs
  • Egg color: Yellowish white
  • Egg size: Length 2.6″ Width 1.8″

11. Blue-winged Teal

Male blue-winged teal in flight against reeds over a lake

Description

While female Blue-winged Teals have a scaly pattern throughout their bodies in light and dark shades of brown, the males have similar shades and patterns but only on their front and sides.

On their heads, Blue-winged Teals have a white crescent shape at the base of their bills and a slate-gray color from there all the way down their necks.

When they unfurl their wings, a vivid patch of blue is displayed around the shoulder area, along with some green and white.

Food

These pretty looking ducks like to forage for food at the edges of calm lakes, ponds, marshes, or swamps with abundant vegetation. These dabbling ducks also like aquatic insects, crustaceans, clams, and snails.

When the winter season comes around, they settle for rice, millet, and water lilies.

Nesting

The female Blue-winged Teal has all the say regarding the chosen area for nesting. Close to water and covered by vegetation are her requirements, but she is very fussy and investigates many different locations before settling on the perfect spot.

Satisfied with her choice, she will scratch away at the ground, forming a circular depression. She adds dry grass and down feathers to finish her nest off. 

Blue-winged Behavior

Of all ducks, Blue-winged Teals cover the longest migration distance—so long, in fact, that they have the highest mortality rate among ducks.

To do so, they leave their breeding grounds long before other duck species.

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Marshes
  • Nesting: Ground
  • Weight: 19.2 oz (544 grams)
  • Length: 15″ to 17″
  • Wingspan: 23″ to 31”
  • Food: Aquatic insects, vegetation, and seed
  • Clutch size: 6 to 14 eggs
  • Egg color: Creamy white
  • Egg size: Length 1.9,” Width 1.4″

12. Wood Duck

A wood duck swimming on a creek

Description

The heads of Wood Ducks look streamlined thanks to a slick crest at the back, and the iridescent green markings that continue down the neck becoming white around the throat and chestnut brown at the chest.

Unlike other duck species, female Wood ducks are almost as glamorous as their male partners. Although they have mostly gray and brown shades, their delicate appearance is adorable.

A white ring enhances their dark eyes, and their brown chest, specked with white, leads down to their backs, where a breathtaking shade of blue is almost hidden by chestnut brown.

Food

Wood Ducks have a more sophisticated diet than the other ducks on my list. While they also enjoy insects and aquatic foods when available, and plant materials are a large part of their diet, these ducks also enjoy fruits, like wild cherries and blackberries.

Other foods not seen in my list that Wood Ducks eat include soybeans, acorns, caterpillars, and isopods. 

Nesting

Wood Ducks search for a nesting site together. While the male stands guard on the lookout for potential predators, the female examines the site. Natural cavities in trees are the preferred place to form their nest and are usually situated over or near water.

Using rotting wood and maybe old squirrel nests that the tree naturally provides, the female Wood Duck only needs to add her plucked feathers for her nest to be complete.

Wood Duck Behavior

Egg dumping is a very common practice among Wood Ducks. Females often choose other Wood Duck nests to lay eggs in and then let the nest owner raise them. 

A Wood duck clutch usually has around ten eggs, but nests have been found with 29 eggs inside. That poor Wood Duck will be overwhelmed come feeding time! 

Key information:

  • Behavior: Dabbler
  • Habitat: Lakes and ponds
  • Nesting: Cavity
  • Weight: 16 to 30 oz (453 to 850 grams)
  • Length: 18.5″ to 21.3″
  • Wingspan: 26″ to 28.7”
  • Food: Plants
  • Clutch size: 6 to 16 eggs
  • Egg color: Creamy white or tan
  • Egg size: Length 2.2″ Width 1.5″

Final Thoughts

Our planet is blessed with a plethora of birds, each special in its own way. Ducks, however, seem to hold a special place in our hearts, especially in Texas. This is due to the iridescent, colorful, and distinctive features of these unique birds.

This article, which gives detailed information about 12 types of ducks that can be found in Texas alone, is a testament to the plentitude, popularity, and love these semi-aquatic birds enjoy.

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