26 Ducks in Louisiana
This is a listing of 26 types of ducks that can be found in Louisiana. Some are seen year-round while some are seasonal, and some are rarities just passing through. No matter when you find them, ducks are beautiful waterfowl and are fun to watch, photograph, or hunt.
Like the rest of the bird world, the male ducks show off their beautiful plumage in the breeding season. Male ducks are also known as Drakes, and females are called Hens.
For other birdwatching in Louisiana see our articles on backyard birds, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers.
Ducks can be found throughout Louisiana. They can be divided into groups by their feeding habits:
types of ducks
Dabbling Ducks are primarily found in fresh water and can be identified as dabblers by their habit of tipping their heads down and butts up when they feed in shallow waters. If their asses are in the air; they are dabbling ducks. Dabbling Ducks are the proverbial puddle ducks found in small ponds.
Diving ducks will get themselves wet all at the same time. You can find these ducks in freshwater, saltwater, and brackish water, on lakes, streams, bays, and inlets.
Sea ducks are diving ducks. They can stay down for long periods. Most live on the open ocean or offshore islands during the summer and come into the coastal or other open waters in winter.
Whistling Ducks are in a family all their own. Genetically, they fall between ducks and geese, and they have a more goose-like appearance than the ducks we usually see.
Dabbling Ducks
1. Mallard
Scientific Name: Anas platyrhynchos Size: 23 inches
The most common duck found in all of North America is the Mallard.
Male Mallards have distinctive iridescent green heads, white neck rings, brown breasts, and pale bodies while the females are all brown. Both have bright orange feet.
Mallards have blue wing patches, called a speculum, that is seen in flight but can occasionally be observed when the ducks are going about their other doings.
These ducks are the quintessential dabbling duck. They eat seeds that have fallen to the bottom of shallow ponds, nest on the ground on dry land, and quack.
Genetically, Mallards will cross with other wild duck species (like American Black Duck and Muscovy) and ducks such as Domestic Mallards, Domestic Muscovy, Pekin, and other domesticated breeds.
These hybrids may end up looking like a Mallard, something resembling a Mallard – or nothing like a Mallard.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Mallards are opportunists and love to swim in your pool, uncovered or covered (if there’s standing water on your cover). They also like lawn sprinklers.
If you live near any water source, be on the lookout for Mom Mallard leading her little ones back to the pond.
!!! Going down to the local pond to feed the ducks? No bread, please! Bread has absolutely no nutritional value for waterfowl, and causes a disease known as “Angel Wing”, which prevents the birds from flying and makes them a “sitting duck” for predators.
Bring them cracked corn or commercial duck feed instead. The waterfowl will thank you.
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2. Mottled Duck
Scientific Name: Anas fulvigula Size: 18.5 to 21 inches
Duck with a rich brown body, buffy head, neck, and a bright yellow bill. Mottled Ducks have a black spot near the gape – this distinguishes them from Mallards and American Black Ducks, which have similar coloration and which the Mottled Duck hybridizes with.
Mottled Ducks prefer shallow fresh or brackish wetlands. Look for them in roadside ditches and impoundments with 6 inches of water or less.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Mottled Ducks are very closely related to American Black Ducks and Mexican Ducks, and slightly less so to Mallards.
Mottled Ducks hybridize with Mallards so easily that the mix has a name – Muddled Ducks – and can be difficult to tell apart from actual Mottled Ducks.
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3. American Black Duck
Scientific Name: Anas rubripes Size: 23 inches
American Black Duck resemble female Mallards, but they are slightly smaller, and their feathers and eye stripes are darker than those found on the female Mallard. They have grayish bills and orange legs and feet.
These ducks show a purple-blue speculum. They are year-round residents in Louisiana.
Since American Black Ducks cross easily with the Mallard, there are many hybrids. And like Mallards, American Black Ducks quack. They are ground nesters and seed eaters but they also like some animal proteins mixed in.
Interesting Facts & Notes
The American Black Duck was the model for Daffy Duck (he’s black, but they’re not).
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4. Wood Duck
Scientific Name: Aix sponsa Size: 18.5 inches
Striking, small, compact ducks are usually seen in pairs or solo, but seldom in big flocks. They are usually found on quiet lakes, ponds, and streams.
In Louisiana, Wood Ducks are usually year-round residents.
Male Wood Ducks are beautifully colored, with an iridescent green head, cinnamon body, red eyes, bold white markings, and a slightly domed head. Female Wood Ducks are brown with distinctive white eyeliner markings on their face. Both have a slightly longer tail.
Wood Ducks nest in tree cavities and man-made nest boxes above the ground to keep their young secure from predators.
Interesting Facts & Notes
When they are ready to leave the nest, the young Wood Ducks take a leap of faith – they jump out of their nest, hit the ground, and waddle off in search of water.
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5. American Wigeon
Scientific Name: Mareca americana Size: 20 inches
A squat duck with a pinkish-brown body and a small bill.
Males have a white or buffy stripe on their foreheads and an iridescent green splash starting behind the eye. The female has a dull gray head. While the female American Wigeons have a husky-sounding quack, the males whistle. This is a duck you will hear before you see it.
American Wigeons feed on pond vegetation like most dabbling ducks and are ground nesters.
Interesting Facts & Notes
An old name for the American Wigeon was “Baldpate” because it was thought that the white stripe on the males resembled an old man’s bald head.
If you see an American Wigeon with a rufous head and a buff-colored forehead stripe, it may be a cousin from across the ocean, the Eurasian Wigeon. Eurasian Wigeons turn up occasionally as rare winter visitors among the groups of their American Wigeon relatives.
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6. Gadwall
Scientific Name: Anas strepera Size: 20 inches
A stocky duck with a rather subdued gray-brown plumage and yellow feet. Gadwalls are usually found in Louisiana during migration.
The male has black feathers on its rump in the breeding season. If you see a dull brown duck with a black butt, it has to be a male Gadwall.
If you find the ducks with the black butts, the less flashy brown females near them are likely female Gadwalls.
Gadwalls are ground nesters, like most dabbling ducks.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Gregarious ducks, Gadwall likes to hang out with other duck species, especially American Wigeon. You can pick them out of a crowd by the male’s black rump.
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7. Northern Pintail
Scientific Name: Anas acuta Size: 21 inches
A slender, elegant dabbling duck with a very long tail and neck and a sleek, clean look.
If a duck was going to attend a formal affair, it’d look like a Northern Pintail. All they would need to dress up is a bow tie for the male and a string of pearls for the female.
The male has a brown head with a black bill, a long white neck and breast, and a gray body while the female is dull buffy brown with a gray bill. Northern Pintails have a bronze or dark brown speculum that shows when they are on the wing.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Northern Pintails are called “Greyhound of the Air” due to their long, slender, streamlined flight profile.
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8. Northern Shoveler
Scientific Name: Anas clypeata Size: 19 inches
Large dabbling duck with an unmistakable long, spoon-shaped bill.
The males have an iridescent green head, while the chest, breast, and rump with a chestnut side and belly. Female Northern Shovelers are speckled brown.
The characteristic feature of the Northern Shoveler is its spoon-shaped bill, which is dark gray (black in breeding season) in the male and olive and light orange in the female. Shovelers use their broad bills to filter seeds, invertebrates, aquatic insects, and small mollusks and crustaceans from the mud.
Northern Shovelers are ground nesters. The female voice is a short, deep quack. Males are more nasal.
Interesting Facts & Notes
No other dabbling duck has a bill as long as a Northern Shoveler.
Northern Shovelers also work together, swimming in circles to stir up any seeds and weeds that will float to the surface, and then eating what arises.
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9. Blue-winged Teal
Scientific Name: Anas discors Size: 15.5 inches
A small, slender duck with beautiful male breeding plumage. In Louisiana, they are only seen during spring and fall migration. Look for them in shallow water, close to the shoreline.
The males have a distinctive white crescent on their face, dark blue head, dark bill, and white hip patch on a dark mottled brown body; the mottled brown female has a dark eye stripe and a white patch on her face close to the bill.
When in flight, they can be identified by their sky-pale blue secondary feathers and iridescent green speculum. Their flight profile is small, slender, and fast.
Teals are ground nesters. Female Blue-winged Teals have a harsh, squeaky nasal quack while male Teals have a high-pitched whistle.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Blue-winged Teals prefer shallow marshy ponds and mudflats and like to be close to edges, where they can pick out seeds and other vegetation.
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10. Green-winged teal
Scientific Name: Anas crecca Size: 14 inches
Mostly seen during spring and fall migration, and occasionally during the rest of the year, this beautiful duck is the smallest of the dabbling ducks and has a short neck and slender, short bill. Green-winged Teal can be easily identified in all plumages by their size (these are small dabbling ducks).
The breeding male sports a rufous head with a bright iridescent green splash starting at the eye. He has a white vertical bar on his shoulder against a light grayish body and a pinkish-brown breast.
Females look like little female Mallards, with grey legs and feet, a darker head, and a dark eye line.
In flight, Green-winged Teal shows a green speculum. They are fast flyers with quick wingbeats.
Interesting Facts & Notes
The Green-winged Teal is a very small duck. Even when in a large mixed flock, it’s the tiniest duck on the pond.
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Whistling Ducks
11. Black-bellied Whistling Duck
Scientific Name: Dendrocygna fulgens Size: 13 inches
Looking more like a cross between a duck and a goose, Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks have long necks, bright dark pink to red bills, and long pink legs and feet. Both sexes look alike; having chestnut bodies, gray faces, and black bellies. Another field mark to look for is a solid white eye ring.
Juveniles have browner bodies than adults, with black bills and pale legs.
In flight, these birds show a white patch on their upper wings (also visible as a stripe down the wing when not flying). Another way to identify these birds on the wing is that those big pink legs trail behind their bodies, and they tend to fly with heads and necks lower than their body lines.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Females often lay their eggs in other Whistling-Duck nests, known as “egg dumping”.
The South American Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (dendrocygna autumnalis) has a pale gray-brown band between the neck and the belly.
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12. Fulvous Whistling Duck
Scientific name: Dendrocygna bicolor Size: 18 to 21 inches
An odd-looking waterfowl species that seems like a cross between a duck and a goose.
Males and female Fulvous Whistling-Ducks look the same – there is no difference in plumages between the sexes. These ducks have long necks and heavy, long legs. Their feet, legs, and bills are bluish-gray. There is broad black barring on their backs and upper wings while their bodies and heads are beautiful rich cinnamon. The females may have a little blacker coloration on the crowns of their heads and the backs of their necks than the males, but that’s the only difference.
In flight, Fulvous Whistling Ducks show cinnamon heads and underparts with dark wings both underneath and on top.
Fulvous Whistling-Ducks prefer warm shallow freshwater – mangrove swamps and coastal lagoons are favorites. The rice fields of the south are excellent Fulvous Whistling Duck locations, providing good food sources and the “just right” depth of water for the birds to live in.
They are group feeders, eating together during the daylight hours and flying noisily onto roosting grounds at dusk.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Like the Wood Duck, the Fulvous Whistling Duck is a cavity nester, and Whistling Ducks were once known as “Tree Ducks”.
These ducks were another casualty of pesticides like the Osprey, Peregrine Falcon, and Bald Eagle. Spraying the rice fields in the Deep South during the 1960s caused a huge decline in their population. With the banning of those pesticides, their numbers have come back and they are no longer threatened.
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Diving Ducks
13. Ring-necked Duck
Scientific Name: Aythya collatis Size: 17 inches
A medium-sized diving duck found in freshwater; the Ring-necked Duck is one of the common migrants in Louisiana, seen in fall and winter.
The male has a black head with a noticeable “bump” towards the top, a black back and rump, a light gray body, and a white vertical splash between the body and the breast. A white stripe is between his head and a light gray bill with a black tip.
There is a ring around the Ring-necked Duck, but it is brown and very hard to see from a distance.
The female’s back is a medium-gray over a light brown body. She has a white eye ring and a white spot between her head and her bill is the same as the male.
The Ring-necked Duck likes to nest in woody-edged marshes. They eat mostly aquatic plants, along with clams and snails.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Ring-necked Ducks look a lot like Lesser and Greater Scaup. See Interesting Facts & Notes on the Greater Scaup to find some tips on telling these birds apart from each other.
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14. Lesser Scaup
Scientific Name: Aythya affinis Size: 16.5 inches
Diving ducks that are found on freshwater ponds, lakes, and bays, Lesser Scaups feed primarily on clams and other marine prey but also eat vegetation.
In Louisiana, Lesser Scaups are seen during migration.
The male has a black head (which may show a purplish iridescence in certain light), neck, and breast like the Ring-necked Duck, but his back is light gray barring, a larger proportion of white body, and a larger black rear. He has a blue bill but no white strip between the bill and his head.
Females, however, have a white crescent around their bills, dark-brown heads, necks, and breasts, brown-gray bodies, and darker brown backs. The Lesser Scaup has a sort of square-top head.
They like to nest near lakes and ponds in marsh-like vegetation. Lesser Scaups feed primarily on clams and other marine prey but also eat vegetation.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Identification tips for all three of these similar-looking birds can be found in the Interesting Facts & Notes section under Greater Scaup.
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15. Greater Scaup
Scientific Name: Aythya marila Size: 18 inches
These diving ducks are found on saltwater bays and lakes and are often found in large numbers. Greater Scaups are seen in Louisiana during winter months.
The male has a black head (which may show a greenish iridescence in certain light), neck, and breast, like the Ring-necked Duck and Lesser Scaup, but his back has light gray barring on top of a white body and a larger black rump. He has a blue bill but no white strip between the bill and his head.
The female has a white crescent around her bill, a dark-brown head, neck, and breast, a brown-gray body, and a darker brown back.
If this sounds similar to the duck listed above, it is. There is not much difference between Lesser and Greater Scaup, so it’s hard to tell them apart.
Greater Scaup has rounded heads; from certain angles, it almost looks like they are slouching. Even this doesn’t help much when trying to make an identification, but hopefully, our Interesting Facts & Notes section will help.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Ring-necked Ducks, Lesser Scaup and sometimes Greater Scaup can be found on the same body of water (sometimes in large flocks), making their identification difficult. These are probably the most confusing species of ducks you’ll have to identify.
The male Ring-necked Duck has a black back, a black tip on its bill, and it has a white stripe between its face and its bill. The females have white eye rings.
When seen in good light, the male Lesser Scaup has a light gray back, no black tip on the bill, and a squarish black head with a purplish iridescence. The female Lesser Scaup has no white eye ring.
The Greater Scaup has a rounded black head with green iridescence and a slightly lighter gray back than the Lesser Scaup. The female has a lighter brown back.
Usually, Greater Scaup is greater in salt water, Lesser Scaup is greater than Greater Scaup in fresh water, and Ring-necked is greater than Lesser and Greater Scaup in fresh water.
Still confused? Don’t feel bad – even the seasoned birder has a hard time with this group, especially with the two Scaup species. That’s why there’s a box for “Scaup species” on most state checklists and eBird.
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16. Ruddy Duck
Scientific Name: Oxyura jamaicensis Size: 15 inches
Small, stocky, large-headed duck with a stiff, cocked-up tail.
Male Ruddy Ducks have a black cap on their heads, white cheeks, rufous body, and blue bill in full breeding plumage; non-breeding male still has distinctive white cheeks and black cap over a brownish-gray body.
Female Ruddy Ducks look like the non-breeding male but with a brown cap and a white cheek and have a brown horizontal stripe across it.
Their tails are stiff and spiky and stand up when they are swimming. Their small, compact silhouette looks like a rubber duck, and they float like rubber ducks in a tub.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Serious night feeders, Ruddy Duck can often be found napping with their heads tucked in and their tails straight up during the day.
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17. Canvasback
Scientific Name: Aythya valisineria Size: 21 inches
Large duck with distinctive sloping head, long, tapering black bill, red eye, and a long neck. Canvasbacks are winter visitors to Louisiana.
The male has a chestnut-red head, neck, and black breast on a white body in full breeding plumage (light grayish brown in non-breeding season) while female heads are light brown in the breeding season.
The Canvasback has a sloping head that makes it stand out among the diving ducks, except for the Eiders.
Canvasbacks like to nest on small ponds. In mating season, the male Canvasback makes a weird hooting to attract his mate.
Interesting Facts & Notes
The Canvasback is one of the largest diving ducks and has a memorable silhouette, making it stand out when viewed in bad lighting.
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18. Redhead
Scientific Name: Aythya americana Size: 19 to 20 inches
The Redhead is a beautiful, eye-catching diving duck. Seeing them in full sunlight shows just how stunning their plumage is, and makes them easy to spot among big mixed flocks.
The male Redhead has a bright rufous head, a blue bill with a black tip, a gray body with a slightly rounded back, and a black chest and rump.
The female Redhead is a duller brown with a bluish-gray bill, with the same rounded head and body as the male.
Redhead ducks feed on seeds, aquatic weeds, water lilies, grasses, and wild rice. They also go for mollusks, aquatic insects, and small fish.
Interesting Facts & Notes
These ducks are social and are usually found on lakes and bays in the company of other species like Ring-neck Duck, Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Duck, and Canvasback.
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Mergansers:
Mergansers are diving ducks with long, thin bills for holding fish. There are three species of Mergansers found throughout Louisiana.
If you see any of these birds in Spring, you may be lucky enough to see the Merganser Dance. Males of all three species line up to impress the girls by bobbing heads, extending their necks, rising out of the water, snapping their bills, and making weird grunting sounds.
19. Hooded Merganser
Scientific Name: Lophodytes cucullatus Size: 18 inches
Small Mergansers with long, slender bills are affectionately called “Hoodies” by birders. Mostly found on ponds and bays, especially if they have woods around them.
Male Hooded Mergansers have a cinnamon body, black head and back, and the distinctive black-and-white hood that, when closed, is somewhat rectangular in shape and rounded when opened.
The female has a long tail, a dark gray body, and a head with ample frosted brown feathers trailing behind its head.
Resourceful birds, Hooded Mergansers utilize old woodpecker holes to lay their eggs in. Mergansers are mostly fish eaters and also consume crustaceans and insects.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Female Mergansers always look like they’ve had a bad hair day, wet or dry. The female “Hoodies” appear to have had a moderate day compared to their other Merganser sisters.
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20. Red-breasted Merganser
Scientific Name: Mergus serrator Size: 23 inches
The largest Merganser. Red-breasted Mergansers, also known as Sawbills, are seen in Louisiana during winter months.
Both Red-breasted Mergansers have long, slim serrated bills. The male bill is red while the female’s bill is orange.
These large ducks sit low in the water. Loons also sit low in the water. Loons are big, heavy-bodied birds with thick bills. Red-breasted Mergansers are much smaller, lighter-bodied birds with thin bills. You shouldn’t mistake a Red-breasted Merganser for a Common Loon.
Red-breasted Mergansers have the worst hair days in the Merganser family. While the males can look like they’ve just gotten out of bed, the females look like they’ve just driven cross country in a convertible. It gets worse when they get wet.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Red-breasted Mergansers need to eat seventeen fish a day on average. That means they must dive between 250-300 times daily to meet their nutritional requirements.
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Sea Ducks
While you would normally expect to find these ducks floating on the ocean, they do find their way into sheltered bays, estuaries, brackish waters, and large lakes in the interior, anywhere with open water.
21. Bufflehead
Scientific Name: Bucephala albeola Size: 13 to 16 inches
Buffleheads are small diving ducks found in fresh and saltwater during winter.
Male Buffleheads have a large white patch on the back of their head, white body, and black back. The female is mostly grey and black with a white splash on the cheek
They stay together in small groups and are often seen cruising along in a flotilla.
Buffleheads are cavity nesters. Their diet is mostly mollusks, crustaceans, and insect larvae.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Buffleheads appear like the proverbial rubber duck, bobbing up and down on the water. Notice that when they dive, there is always a single sentinel or a group that stays on top to look for signs of danger relative to the size of the group that’s underwater.
This can make them hard to count when doing a survey or even your own – 10 on top and 8 went down but now 2 came up and 5 went down??? Frustrating, but they are fun to watch!
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22. Common Goldeneye
Scientific Name: Bucephela clangula Size: 18.5 inches
Diving ducks with noticeable golden eyes and white cheek patches are seen on both fresh and saltwater during Louisiana winters.
Male Common Goldeneyes have a white body, black rump, greenish-black iridescent heads, and a white spot beneath their eyes.
The female Common Goldeneye has a light gray body, dark butt, and brown head.
Common Goldeneyes have a broad white wing patch very noticeable in flight.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Common Goldeneye’s wings make a metallic whistling sound when they are in flight.
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23. Long-tailed Duck
Scientific Name: Clangula hymalis Size: 20.5 inches
Whether they are diving, flying, or just hanging out on the water, Long-tailed Ducks always look like they are having fun. What’s a little cold when you’re watching these happy-go-lucky beautiful little ducks?
For the most part, Long-tailed Ducks are black or brown with white patches and markings.
The male Long-tailed Duck is strikingly patterned, changing plumage throughout the year. Breeding drakes have white heads, necks, and breasts and a black patch on their cheeks. Females are mostly brown with white patches.
Long-tailed Ducks are great divers and prefer mollusks and crustaceans for their dining pleasure. They are fast on the wing and fly lower than most other ducks.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Yodel-Ay-Hee-Hoo!! Long-tailed Ducks yodel. You can often hear them before you see them, and the more there are, the louder it gets.
These ducks are so much fun to watch! Long-tailed Ducks dive into the water like little daredevils. And they yodel! You may not be able to see them, but you can hear them loud and clear.
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24. Black Scoter
Scientific Name: Melanitta nigra Size: 19 inches
The Black Scoter is the smallest and most compact of the Scoter family. In Louisiana, they can be found only during winter months.
They are dark sea ducks with short bills, usually found floating in rafts on the open salt water.
Males have yellow-orange bills and are all black; females are dark with whitish patches on the face and cheeks.
Interesting Facts & Notes
Black Scoters are very vocal, making a whistling sound that carries over the water.
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25. White-winged Scoter
Scientific Name: Melanitta fusca Size: 21 inches
The largest of the Scoters, they are usually found in large rafts floating along with other members of the Scoter family. White-winged Scoters have a long bill and somewhat concave head.
Seasonal visitors to Louisiana, White-winged Scoters are found in winter months.
Males are black on top over a dark brown body, with a distinctive white “comma” below their eyes. The bills are orange and slightly puffed close to the head.
Female White-winged Scoters are dark brownish-black. Like the other female Scoters, they have two white patches on the face, one behind the eye and the other on the face between the eyes.
The white speculum on both sexes is an easy identification mark, not only when they are on the wing, but also when diving or sitting in the water.
Interesting Facts & Notes
White-winged Scoters are usually found in mixed rafts along with Black Scoters. The male White-winged Scoter’s eye comma stands out, so if you count all the black ducks with white eye markings, the rest of the Scoters in the group must be Black Scoters. (This tip is courtesy of a waterfowl census-taker).
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26. Surf Scoter
Scientific Name: Melanitta perspicillata Size: 20 inches
Surf Scoters are the Scoter species found closest to shore and the easiest to identify. Look for them in winter months in coastal areas and on large lakes and reservoirs.
The males are all black with a white patch on the forehead and a larger one on the nape of the neck. They have heavy triangular, multi-colored, bulbous bills that stand out among the sea ducks.
The most distinctive features of male Surf Scoters are their bills. The bills appear orange from afar but are black, white, red, and yellow. They are wider and puffier at the top and taper towards the tip, making their heads look like a wedge.
The female Surf Scoter has two white patches on her face, one in the front being long and narrow while the other sits behind and beneath the eye.
These sea ducks like to be where the breaking waves are, so they are usually the Scoter found closest to shore. They dive for crustaceans, mollusks, small fish, and aquatic vegetation.
Interesting Facts & Notes
An old name for the Surf Scoter used to be “Skunk Head”.
First-winter males do not have the large, protruding bill of mature adults.
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Rare ducks in Louisiana
An accidental rarity is the beautiful Harlequin Duck. This strikingly patterned duck is a treat to watch and one tough little duck – many of their bones show healed breaks and fractures from getting smashed around in their habitat. This is a sea duck that loves turbulent water, so if it happens to be around, it’s near jetties, rocks, and fast-flowing rivers.
Fun Facts – Where’s the White?
White seems to be a color that most waterfowl have in common. This method of identifying species of waterfowl by where the white is comes from the Cornell Bird Lab.
The method works like this – do you see white on the duck you’re observing? It’s in different areas on different duck species
- White-winged Scoters have a white comma under their eye and a very distinctive white speculum that can be seen in flight and when resting on the waves (and females have white face patches).
- Surf Scoters have a white patch on their foreheads and the back of their necks in addition to their huge bills (face patches on females apply here too).
- Black Scoter males have no white, and females have face patches.
Using the location of the white markings, you can see how to identify each of the Scoter species by seeing where the white is: a comma under the eye is a White-winged, forehead and neck patches are Surf, and no white at all means Black Scoter. Eventually, you will become familiar with the shapes and locations of the face patches on the females too, and become an expert Scoter spotter.
Where to find Ducks in Louisiana
The best places to find ducks in Louisiana are ponds, lakes, bays, bayous, beaches, rivers, and the coast.
Favorite spots are anywhere on lakes, ponds, rivers, marshes, wetlands, beaches, and shorelines. Think saltwater for sea ducks, but some may show up on other bodies of water.
Most of the ducks mentioned here are winter visitors to Louisiana. Mallard Ducks, Wood Ducks, and Mottled ducks are year-round residents, as are Blue-winged Teal and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. Fulvous Whistling Ducks arrive during Spring migration and stay through summer.
Coastal wetlands, the Mississippi Delta, bayous, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Gulf Coast are some of the best places for waterfowl. Don’t forget to watch for other bird species like waders and flycatchers too!
Buffleheads, Common Goldeneye, Long-tailed Ducks, and the three Scoter species are winter visitors. They prefer the Gulf and large bodies of water. White-winged Scoters are primarily found along the western Gulf Coast, near the Texas border. Other overwintering species like Scaups, Canvasbacks, Gadwall, and Shovelers favor coastal wetlands and bayous but don’t forget Lake Pontchartrain and waterways around New Orleans.
National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) are awesome places for both bird watchers and hunters to search for ducks.
There are 23 National Wildlife Refuges in Louisiana, too many to list here, but Anahuac, Bayou Sauvage, Cameron Prairie, Lacassine, and Sabine NWRs are superb for ducks and other migratory waterfowl.
*** If you visit one of the many National Wildlife Refuges in Louisiana, please consider purchasing a Federal Duck Stamp. ***
The $25 fee gets you a beautiful commemorative stamp featuring paintings of waterfowl. It provides the network of National Wildlife Refuges with funds to maintain and preserve valuable wetland habitats like freshwater marshes.
Showing your Federal Duck Stamp covers any entrance/parking fees at most National Wildlife Refuges.
Conclusion
Whatever state you find yourself in, the local Audubon Society is also a good place to find where the ducks are being seen. Louisiana Audubon has great information on bird watching in the state.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this little guide to the ducks you will find in Louisiana. All you need to start is a decent pair of binoculars and a good location. Get out there are see all the wonderful ducks found in Louisiana.
