Females have the same general color pattern as the males, but with yellowish heads and gray-white feathers along their backs.

A female wood duck is an overall gray with some blue and purple wing markings, a white eye ring, brown eyes and a duller bill ...

Blue billed duck at Rockingham. Credit: Allen Newton At other times blue-bills are still recognisable by their distinctive low profile in the water and their short, stiff tails.