{"id":75648,"date":"2020-12-03T05:52:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T12:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=75648"},"modified":"2025-05-24T05:05:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T10:05:24","slug":"first-winter-common-mergansers-in-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/12\/03\/first-winter-common-mergansers-in-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"First Winter Common Mergansers In Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TwoTwo first winter Common Mergansers in flight \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/2500, ISO 500, -0.3, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

Some winters here in the Salt Lake Valley I see quite a lot Common Mergansers while in other years I only see a few. I’m hoping that this winter I will see plenty of these beautiful, sleek diving ducks.<\/p>\n

But this is the year 2020 and I’ve learned not to count on much being “normal”, haven’t we all?<\/p>\n

I took this photo of two first winter Common Mergansers in flight not long before the sun set over the Oquirrh Mountains on December 26, 2017. The light was gorgeous and so were the immature mergansers as they flew by just barely above the icy cold water.<\/p>\n

I see people mistakenly label first winter Common Mergansers as females quite often because superficially they do look like adult females.<\/p>\n

I have only seen a few Common Mergansers this year and they were too far away to photograph. I’m hoping that they show up soon because I enjoying seeing and photographing these long-bodied diving ducks.<\/p>\n

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

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of\u00a0 my Common Merganser photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some winters here in the Salt Lake Valley I see quite a lot Common Mergansers while in other years I only see a few. I’m hoping that this winter I will see plenty of these beautiful, sleek diving ducks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[976,4753,2450,4052,4122,4067,4705,4704,4239,1984,4188,8018,3996,373,4193],"class_list":["post-75648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-common-mergansers","category-salt-lake-county-utah","category-utah","tag-common-merganser","tag-diving-ducks","tag-first-winter","tag-flight","tag-flying","tag-immature","tag-merganser","tag-mergansers","tag-mergus-merganser","tag-pond","tag-shoreline","tag-urban","tag-water","tag-winter","tag-young"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-first-winter-flight-mia-mcpherson-1861.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-jG8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":119702,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2024\/01\/15\/common-mergansers-and-remote-controlled-harassment\/","url_meta":{"origin":75648,"position":0},"title":"Common Mergansers And Remote Controlled Harassment","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"January 15, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I photographed these Common Mergansers at my local pond three years ago today. I will explain why I only had a few minutes with the mergansers at my local pond.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Two immature Common Mergansers in flight, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/common-merganser-immature-flight-mia-mcpherson-8992.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/common-merganser-immature-flight-mia-mcpherson-8992.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/common-merganser-immature-flight-mia-mcpherson-8992.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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McPherson","date":"December 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes I wonder how birds get their names, especially the birds with \"Common\" in their names such as Common Mergansers.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Preening Common Merganser, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-preening-mia-mcpherson-6662.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-preening-mia-mcpherson-6662.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-preening-mia-mcpherson-6662.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-preening-mia-mcpherson-6662.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":50520,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2018\/01\/06\/drake-common-merganser-in-flight-in-northern-utah\/","url_meta":{"origin":75648,"position":3},"title":"Drake Common Merganser In Flight In Northern Utah","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"January 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the drake Common Mergansers I saw yesterday flew over the pond and past me close enough for me to take two photos of it up close in the late evening light.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Drake Common Merganser in flight in evening light, Salt Lake County, 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McPherson","date":"May 31, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A simple portrait of a Common Merganser, featuring water droplets and a bow wave, is what I wanted to share this morning. The photo was taken at my local pond.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Common Merganser portrait with water droplets and a bow wave, Salt Lake County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/common-merganser-spring-urban-pond-mia-mcpherson-4183.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/common-merganser-spring-urban-pond-mia-mcpherson-4183.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/common-merganser-spring-urban-pond-mia-mcpherson-4183.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/common-merganser-spring-urban-pond-mia-mcpherson-4183.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":123760,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2024\/03\/13\/immature-common-merganser-shaking-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":75648,"position":5},"title":"Immature Common Merganser Shaking Off","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a simple photo of an immature Common Merganser today. I took this image of the merganser on the Bear River almost two years ago on a bright, sunny morning.","rel":"","context":"In "Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge"","block_context":{"text":"Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Immature Common Merganser shaking off water on the Bear River, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Box Elder County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-flapping-bear-river-mia-mcpherson-1609.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-flapping-bear-river-mia-mcpherson-1609.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-flapping-bear-river-mia-mcpherson-1609.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/common-merganser-flapping-bear-river-mia-mcpherson-1609.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}