Tag: common merganser

One-footed Merganser In A Hurry

I live near a local fishing pond that attracts a few fish-eating birds, particularly in the late winter and early spring.  For the last few days there’s been a pair of Common Mergansers on the pond and yesterday morning I was finally able to get relatively close to them for a few minutes.  The pond was still about half covered with ice but it’s melting fast.    1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light Most of the time there wasn’t much action with the cormorants but once, when this bird apparently thought its companion might have caught a fish, it rushed over to investigate.  It wasn’t until this morning when I began culling and processing the images that I noticed that it was missing its left foot.      1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  Since they use their webbed feet to help propel them along the surface of the water this bird could really scoot for having only one foot.      1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light  This image shows the missing foot best.      1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500 f/4, 1.4 tc, natural light This shot, and the next two, are of the other merganser.  As you can see it had some kind of fishing lure/hook stuck in its lower mandible.  It doesn’t look like a typical lure so perhaps it’s what’s left of a fish that it had tried to swallow when the hook and/or line got stuck in its bill.      1/2000, f/7.1, ISO 500, 500…

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Common Merganser

This winter I had my first good opportunities with the Common Merganser.  A single female in non-breeding plumage spent several weeks at a pond I frequent and even though the lighting was typically marginal while I was there I still got some shots of her that I like.    500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/500, f/7.1, ISO 640 Notice the serrated bill of this fish eating duck – a very effective tool for holding on to their slippery prey.      500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/2500, f/7.1, ISO 500 This duck gave me a variety of interesting poses in the several days I photographed her but much of the time she was too far away for a quality shot.  This was one of the exceptions.       500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/400, f/7.1, ISO 640   I had a difficult time getting light in the eye while she was preening.  Here’s one image where I succeeded.      500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 500 I’m convinced that the reason this merganser hung around the pond for as long as it did is because she was an accomplished thief.  The pond had a resident population of about a dozen Pied-billed Grebes and those grebes are very good fishermen.  I seldom saw the merganser actively fishing but whenever a grebe caught a fish this duck was instantly in pursuit in an effort to steal the fish – which is just what she’s doing in this shot.        500mm, 1.4 tc, 1/1600, f/7.1, ISO 400 I was often amused by the variety of positions the merganser could hold her crest – from slicked back…

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