Aix sponsa, 28 May 2017

Aix sponsa, the Wood duck;
Lake county, Florida (28 May 2017).

The Wood duck is a startlingly lovely species that ranges throughout most of the non-desert United States, north to/through southern Canada, and south to/through northern Mexico. It is closely related to the equally fabulous Mandarin duck (Aix galericulata), a specie that ranges throughout much of the Palearctic on the opposite sides of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In Florida, I don’t see them frequently within my stretch of the peninsula, but I wouldn’t consider them rare overall.