Red-Breasted Merganser - Duck Hunting - Wetland Hunting

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Red-Breasted Merganser

 

Description

Red-breasted mergansers are large, slim, and long-bodied diving ducks with reasonably long necks and long, thin, serrated bills. Their shaggy crests of feathers give the head of red-breasted merganser a distinctive profile. They are about 51 to 64 cm in length, weigh 800 – 1,350 g in weight, and have a wingspan of 66 to 74 cm.

Males have a fuzzy green head, cinnamon chest, and a white neckband. However, non-breeding males and females have a shaggy brown head, brownish chin, dingy breast, and a brownish-gray body.

Habitat
Main habitats include open water, lakes, and coastal bays in winter. However, during the nesting season, these birds thrive in rivers and lakes. You can find these birds on coastal waters, including estuaries, open ocean, and bays.

Diet
The diet is mainly fish, but small fishes, aquatic insects, crustaceans comprise the diet. You can find these birds feeding on worms, tadpoles, and frogs. Young ducklings usually feed on insects.
The red-breasted merganser forage by swimming and diving underwater. Sometimes, you can find a group of ducks hunting cooperatively with several birds lining up and driving fish schools into shallow water. It is easier for the mergansers to scoop the fish up without diving in shallow water.

Nesting
Females select the nesting ground near a water source. The site is sheltered by debris or dense plant growth to protect the eggs. The nest site can be in a shallow burrow, under a rock, or inside a hollow stump. Typically, the nest is a shallow depression lined with down. In courtship displays, males stretch their neck forward and upward and then dip their neck underwater. However, their head is angled up out of the water, and they open their bill wide open.

Female mergansers lay 7 to 10 olive buff eggs, and the females do incubation for 29 to 35 days. The young feed themselves with two or more broods joining together. The young make their first flight after two months.


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