Hooded Merganser, Lophodytes cucullatus
Looking across a brackish lagoon, the boiling, roiling, splashing water in the distance caught my attention. It looked as if some thing used a cauldron for this commotion. What large animal could cause this chaotic, watery disruption?
Suddenly a head popped up, then another. Then more heads appeared. Ah, it wasn’t a giant fish or a large animal but a feeding flock of Hooded Mergansers that continued to thrash, dive, and disturb the surface.
With wings held tight against its body underwater, it dives while those feet propel it through the water. Some even just motored along with their heads down searching for prey. Scientists believe the translucent nictitating membrane or third eyelid assists in underwater viewing.
Others took time to nap while floating. Occasionally, some flapped wings to zip up their feather parts for waterproofing.
These observations were consistent during my way-too-brief day and a half at Black Point Wildlife Drive, an incredible birding hotspot of a seven mile one-way drive in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near Titusville, Florida.
With about a 2 foot wingspan on its 13-19 inch body, it is the smallest of three species found in North America with the Red-breasted and Common Mergansers as the other two. So far, it is restricted to North America. However, even as recently as Dec. 2024, this species occurred in the Yucatan! An uncommon visitor.
An adult male Hooded Merganser has black and white feathers with a black bill and an amazing up/down crest while the brownish females have lighter bills. That serrated bill is a great holdfast for slippery prey and gave mergansers the nickname of “sawbill.”
Primarily a fish eater, it also dines on crustaceans like crayfish, aquatic insects, tadpoles, mollusks, and some plant material. After catching a fish, it will rearrange it to be swallowed head first to avoid any pesky upright fins.
What a surprise to watch these adults Hooded Mergansers diving for food in this feeding frenzy! Surely this interactive feeding behavior is easily explained. Maybe it looks like one large animal so predators might stay away. Actually the young may swim together to appear like a larger animal such as a muskrat to fool a predator.
While I continued to marvel at mergansers, I was shocked when Miss Google didn’t share many references on group feeding behavior of this merganser species. One source did mention it is considered a solitary hunter as it pursues its own prey. They do actively feed together but it isn’t considered coordinated. Whether it is or isn’t, surely some benefit occurs if these ducks hunt in a group and could certainly scare fish in the direction of others. Also, I think the same scenario would occur when other waterfowl or wading birds fed in close proximity such as the Northern Shoveler.
Certainly other birds wanted to steal their prey such as gulls. And I even saw a duck in among their midst which probably also profited from the intensely active predators chasing prey.
I was never close to these feeding ducks but so enthralled with their behavior I wanted to share that experience with you. Those beauties beckon me to get closer to photograph them without impacting their natural behavior but I don’t live near them.
NATURE CAN JUST BE DUCKY. AND I WAS LUCKY!
DISCLAIMER: Some references may not agree or I may not have found the most recent name changes. Plus autocorrect doesn’t like scientific names or language translations.
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/commer/cur/behavior
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/hoomer/cur/introduction
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hooded_Merganser/overview
https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/field-guide/entry/hooded-merganser
http://npshistory.com/brochures/nwr/merritt-island-black-point-drive-2019.pdf
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Lophodytes_cucullatus
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10698&context=condor
Feeding Association Between Bonaparte’s Gulls and Hooded Mergansers. They saw no interaction between gulls and mergansers.
Cherie Pittillo, “nature inspired,” photographer and author, explores nature everywhere she goes. She’s identified 56 bird species in her Merida, Yucatan backyard view. Her monthly column features anecdotes about birding in Merida, Yucatan and also wildlife beyond the Yucatan.
Contact: [email protected] All rights reserved, ©Cherie Pittillo
