Wood Duck / Summer Duck

Wood Duck or Summer Duck [now Wood Duck]
Anas sponsa, Linnaeus [now Aix sponsa]
Octavo edition, plate 391

“This beautiful species ranges over the whole extent of the United States, and I have seen it in all parts from Louisiana to . . . Maine. . . . It confines itself . . . entirely to fresh water, preferring at all times the secluded retreats of the ponds, bayous, or creeks, that occur so profusely in our woods. . . . They are much attached to their breeding-places and for three successive years I found a pair near Henderson, in Kentucky, with eggs in the beginning of April, in the abandoned nest of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.”

John James Audubon, Birds of America (New York: J.J. Audubon; Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1856), vol. 6, p. 272-273.

View bird in National Audubon Society Field Guide for North American Birds.