Hooded Merganser

My first hooded merganser!

I was on the river photographing bald eagles when this fellow flew in and landed on the water.  He was there for a few seconds, and then, taking in the number of voracious photographers lining the boardwalk, he took off again for calmer waters.  But what a looker!  I was almost more excited about him than the eagles.

I'm not an expert on ducks, so at first I thought it was a bufflehead.  They have big white wedges on their heads, and that's what popped into my mind.  Then I heard the other photographers talking about it, and they said it was a merganser.  I came home and checked out my field guides, and of course they were right.

There are three basic types of mergansers:  the common merganser, the red-breasted merganser, and the hooded merganser.  The hooded is the smallest of the three, and the males have the white, fan-shaped patch on their head.  They begin pairing up in early winter, so he may have been on the lookout for some lady mergansers.

The name merganser, from Latin, indicates a duck-like, diving water bird.