With Wings Extended: A Leap into the Wood Duck's World

by Greg Hoch

Overview

A century ago, many people had given up on the wood duck, dooming it to extinction along with the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet. Today, it’s one of the most familiar and most harvested ducks in the eastern half of the country, and one of America’s great conservation success stories.

In With Wings Extended, Minnesota conservationist Greg Hoch introduces readers to a duck they probably recognize but may not know well. This book shows how almost anyone can get involved in conservation and do something for wildlife beyond writing checks to conservation organizations. Hoch illustrates the complexities of wildlife and habitat management that landowners as well as state and federal wildlife agencies deal with on a daily basis, and takes readers through the life stages of what is largely considered the most beautiful duck in the world. In this fascinating and practical read, Hoch blends the historical literature about the species with modern science, and also shows how our views of conservation have changed over the last century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609386955
Publisher:	University of Iowa Press
Publication date:	05/04/2020
Series:	Bur Oak Book
Edition description:	1
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Greg Hoch works as a prairie habitat supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He is author of Booming from the Mists of Nowhere: The Story of the Greater Prairie-Chicken (Iowa, 2015) and Sky Dance of the Woodcock: The Habits and Habitats of a Strange Little Bird (Iowa, 2019). He lives near Cambridge, Minnesota.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Preface xiii

Introduction | a most beautiful duck 1

1 Taxonomy and anatomy 11

2 Endless forms most beautiful 19

3 The acorn duck 39

4 Cavities and boxes 49

5 Nesting 63

6 The first year 85

7 Habitat and migration 95

8 Hunting then and now 119

9 Engagement 133

Conclusion | still water 143

Bibliography 147

Index 165

What People are Saying About This

Tom Landwehr

“This is an extraordinarily thorough and well-researched book by Hoch. The story of the wood duck is the story of North American wildlife—overexploitation, management, and recovery. This success story needs to be understood by all those with an interest in wildlife and hunting. I highly recommend it.”—Tom Landwehr, author, Hunting Adventures on the Minnesota Frontier: Sportsmen’s Tales from 1850-1900

Jay Michael Strangis

“Author Greg Hoch, like his avian subjects, turns over every leaf in search of that fat acorn of evidence, reasoned opinion, statistic, or intriguing circumstance to nourish his telling. The result is a pageant of accumulated thought, color, and light as wondrous as the wood ducks’ lair. Once you have read this book, you will wonder no more why the secretive, yet brilliantly adorned, wood duck holds such special esteem in the Americas and beyond.”—Jay Michael Strangis, editor, American Waterfowler Magazine