{"id":29871,"date":"2015-03-03T07:44:52","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T14:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=29871"},"modified":"2015-03-03T08:17:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T15:17:28","slug":"one-footed-merganser-giving-up-on-an-old-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/03\/one-footed-merganser-giving-up-on-an-old-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"One-footed Merganser – Giving Up On An Old Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

The older I get the more I root for the underdog and this merganser has been near the top of my underdog\u00a0list for three years now.<\/p>\n

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\"common1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Three winters ago (2-16-13)\u00a0I photographed this one-footed Common Merganser at Willow Pond near my home (I’ve posted other images of this bird but this one is new to my blog). Its left foot was missing and I suspect it was lost to fishing line (this birds companion was entangled in line and had a fishing lure in its bill). Attempts were made to capture and help these birds but those attempts were unsuccessful so I assumed that neither bird would survive for long. But I was wrong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"common<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS USM, not baited, set up or called in\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Almost exactly a year later (2-13-14) I\u00a0encountered this same\u00a0merganser (now in adult plumage) at the same pond (I’ve posted this image previously). I’m\u00a0virtually positive it was the same bird because its left foot was also missing. To think that this bird\u00a0was able to\u00a0not only survive but also to migrate\u00a0to its northern breeding grounds and return tickled me pink. So\u00a0this winter\u00a0I’ve checked the pond about three times per week to see if the merganser had returned but I never did spot it and it’s late enough in the season that I probably won’t.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean that it’s not still out there somewhere, chasing down fish with only one foot for propulsion. I sure hope it’s been doing just that and is now on its way to Canada for another breeding season.<\/p>\n

If you missed the full report on this bird, more information and images can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

PS – Sorry about the delay in posting this morning.\u00a0 Our electricity went out for about an hour and a half\u00a0– a\u00a0helluva way to start the day…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The older I get the more I root for the underdog and this merganser has been near the top of my underdog list for three years now.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,348,8],"tags":[92,1245,1247,2433],"class_list":["post-29871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-common-mergansers","category-ecology-and-environment","tag-common-merganser","tag-mergus-merganser","tag-missing-foot","tag-underdog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/common-merganser-7215b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-7LN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}