Many, Many Mergansers!

By now, you've probably seen Brent Cizek's viral photo of a hen Common Merganser leading a long train of about 50 fuzzy little babies. (If not, check it out at his photography website, plus his followup visit a couple weeks later, when the group had grown to 76 ducklings. He found the incredible family in Minnesota's Lake Bemidji.

Why was the group so big? This isn't a case of an insanely large nest. Rather, most of the babies probably had different mothers. Common Mergansers often merge multiple hens' broods under the care of one hen-- although not usually quite so many babies at the same time! The new group of babies is called a creche.

It's even possible the hen in Cizek's photo might not actually be the mother of any of the ducklings, but rather their grandmother. Now that's one busy grandma! Baby mergansers can feed themselves as soon as they hatch, so at least she doesn't have to provide food for all her fluffy little followers.

Turns out Common Mergansers on the C & O Canal form creches too!

And remember the merganser family I wrote about back in May? Victor and I saw a large merganser creche reminiscent of Cizek's, when we took a sunset stroll at the C & O Canal a month after our first sighting. These mergansers looked to be about half-grown-- older than the fuzzballs Cizek photographed, but still clustering together as ducklings will. We counted at least forty individuals, which seems to be a large but not atypical group for Common Merganser creches. Presumably some of them were the seven little fluffballs we saw a month before.

I'm really glad to see further evidence of a healthy breeding population in our area. Although most field guides list the Common Merganser as only a winter resident in the MidAtlantic area, the Maryland Biodiversity Project states that they're increasing along the Potomac as a breeder. Cool!

Should we go this way?

No, wait, maybe over here.

Yep, this looks like a good direction.