{"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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_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":[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":[],"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