{"id":49562,"date":"2017-11-24T05:31:18","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T12:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=49562"},"modified":"2025-05-23T15:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T20:58:10","slug":"i-spotted-my-first-of-season-common-merganser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2017\/11\/24\/i-spotted-my-first-of-season-common-merganser\/","title":{"rendered":"I Spotted My First of Season Common Merganser"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FemaleFemale Common Merganser on icy blue water – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/500, ISO 320, -0.3 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

While at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge<\/span><\/a> two days ago I spotted my first of the season Common Merganser from the auto tour route. It was a beautiful female much like the hen in the photo above. I wasn’t able to take any photos of it though because it was skittish, on the wrong side of the road and if I had gotten out of the “mobile blind” the merganser would have been long gone before I could have gotten it in my viewfinder. Still, I was excited because she was my first spotting of these mergansers since early this spring.<\/p>\n

Common Mergansers breed just north of Utah and I do see them on their breeding grounds in Idaho and Montana but not down here in Utah (there are a few places south of where I live where they breed). I once saw a beautiful flock of them on Cliff Lake in Montana and to my regret I didn’t get any high quality photos of them that day because they moved away before I could get my gear set up.<\/p>\n

So for the next few months I can look forward to photographing these saw-billed ducks close to home at local ponds, at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and hopefully at Farmington Bay WMA. I also hope to add more photos of the drakes in breeding plumage to my portfolio as well, I see fewer males than females and immature birds most of the time which is why I don’t have as many images of them as I do the hens.<\/p>\n

I photographed the female Common Merganser above at one of the local ponds on December 12th of 2016, she was part of a small flock on the pond that day and she swam close enough for me to take frame filling photos of her on the icy blue water. There was a bit of a breeze blowing that day which caused some of the feathers on her head to stick up. She is rocking that punked out look.<\/p>\n

I’m happy that the mergansers are back, they are fun to photograph!<\/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":"

While at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge two days ago I spotted my first of the season Common Merganser from the auto tour route. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,476,709,26],"tags":[4004,970,6076,976,4753,1129,126,4620,4070,6242,4359,6241,4705,4704,4239,1984,6243,6240,8018,3996,2063],"class_list":["post-49562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-common-mergansers","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-adult","tag-autumn","tag-blue","tag-common-merganser","tag-diving-ducks","tag-duck","tag-ducks-2","tag-fall","tag-female","tag-first-of-season","tag-hen","tag-icy","tag-merganser","tag-mergansers","tag-mergus-merganser","tag-pond","tag-range","tag-sea-ducks","tag-urban","tag-water","tag-waterfowl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-hen-mia-mcpherson-2429.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-cTo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":110602,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2023\/03\/01\/hen-common-merganser-at-bear-river-mbr\/","url_meta":{"origin":49562,"position":0},"title":"Hen Common Merganser At Bear River MBR","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 1, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month I photographed this hen Common Merganser in a small spot of open water next to an ice shelf at Bear River MBR. 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