As can be seen the duck was very badly damaged. I decided to let nature to take its course. There are several bald eagles a d turkey vultures near by and they are nesting. So perhaps?
Ok, who is this? Challenging lighting through the leaves is making colors not totally accurate, but seems to be an olive-ish back and a yellowish or orangish cap? And strong wing bars, but no strong eye/face markings. Dark tail, brown/chestnut on the flight feathers in the one backlit photo. Hopping around hiding behind leaves. Dozens of birds audible nearby, but nothing on Merlin with a timestamp close to the time of the pics seems a close match, and this bird was too busy grooming to sing.
My best guess is… immature or not-completely-in-breeding-plumage-yet chestnut sided warbler??? But as you can tell from me not even narrowing it down to Parulidae, I have no confidence on that, lol. (Curious to see what @psweet says, if he has time to help!)
I have a few more photos that I originally thought was this same little bird I was trying to track through the leaves, but that I now suspect is a different individual, will edit to link that once I get a minute to come back and post that observation (iNat between chores on day off…..) (Edit here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/218694467)
Injured on the road