{"id":44029,"date":"2016-12-20T05:48:29","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T12:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=44029"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:46:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T20:46:05","slug":"common-merganser-hunting-close-up-in-salt-lake-county-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2016\/12\/20\/common-merganser-hunting-close-up-in-salt-lake-county-utah\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Merganser hunting close up in Salt Lake County, Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CommonCommon Merganser hunting close up – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 320, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Two days ago I was surprised by being able to photograph a Common Merganser hunting close to the shoreline of a nearby pond in Salt Lake County. So far this winter the mergansers at that pond have been fairly skittish and haven’t come close enough to be able to produce frame filling,\u00a0 high quality images but this one came up so close while it was fishing that I almost could not focus on it.<\/p>\n

\"CommonCommon Merganser close up – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/1250, ISO 320, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason may be that this appears to be a hatch year, female Common Merganser and like other young birds it may not have develop a fear of humans yet. Whatever the reason for it being so close I had to take close up images and I couldn’t fit the entire bird in the frame. The merganser swam off after I had taken about two dozen images.<\/p>\n

The pond was frozen over yesterday so unless the weather warms up enough to defrost some of the ice on the pond I may not be down there photographing birds for a while.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Common Merganser photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days ago I was surprised by being able to photograph a Common Merganser hunting close to the shoreline of a nearby pond in Salt Lake County. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,476,709,26],"tags":[4142,976,4753,1129,126,2450,3970,4067,4705,4704,4239,1984,4046,8018,3996,2063,373,4193],"class_list":["post-44029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-common-mergansers","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-close-up","tag-common-merganser","tag-diving-ducks","tag-duck","tag-ducks-2","tag-first-winter","tag-hunting","tag-immature","tag-merganser","tag-mergansers","tag-mergus-merganser","tag-pond","tag-portrait","tag-urban","tag-water","tag-waterfowl","tag-winter","tag-young"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t