Monday, July 6, 2015

Two Pair

As my canoe came clear of a shrubby patch on a small point here on Birch Lake, there came an explosion of wings.

Mergansers – two males and two females – shot out of the water and arrowed away. The contrast of colors surprised and delighted me. I’m used to identifying mergansers by the female’s slender shape and rusty crest. The male with his green head (when in mating plumage) can fool the unsophisticated, like me, into thinking he’s a mallard.

Those of us who spend time on our lakes in spring get to see a variety of ducks pass through on their migration north. According to Audubon, common mergansers (the kind I saw) breed mostly in Canada and winter mainly south of here, in a swath that includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas.

I’ve heard mergansers described as early arrivals in the northward migration, though I’ve noted other species on our lake sooner after ice-out. Until the sighting of the two pair several days ago, I had never seen more than two mergansers together.

Now and then I’ve had the chance to watch a female diving for fish, which is mainly what mergansers eat. They vanish faster and surface sooner than do loons – they seem to bring to their “fishing” a greater sense of urgency.

The female’s crest looks pleasantly unkempt. As for the male merganser, he’s pretty easily distinguished from a mallard. He’s similar in overall size but more slender. His green head (not crested) isn’t as bright as a mallard’s. He also lacks the mallard’s chestnut breast and white neck ring. The merganser’s bill is long and red; the mallard’s is yellow.

You’ll also easily distinguish the male mergansers by their sound. Mallards give out the “quack” of the stereotypical duck. Mergansers don’t say a lot but emit a low, harsh “croak.”  All that aside, while mallards carry the taint of park ponds and domestication, mergansers portray the essence of the wild.

If I take any lesson from this sighting, it’s that we can appreciate spring and migration more if we see more than “just ducks” passing through our lake country. While I’m nobody’s birdwatcher, I find a little time spent with binoculars and a field guide book reveals a rich diversity in visitors’ shapes, colors and behavior.

And I must say those mergansers that rocketed off Birch Lake – boy-girl, boy-girl – were among the best two pair I’ve ever been dealt.





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