Updated: December 25, 2020. The few mergansers we get passing through in the fall on the way to somewhere else came by very late this year. The first two pictures were taken on December 13! Within two days the lake was frozen and the mergansers had gone. The next two pictures are of a young (I think) merganser catching frogs in Goose Bay in mid-August (2020). The second of these is not as sharp as I would like but its not every day you see a frog trying to climb on the bill of a merganser. I feel this did not end well for the frog.

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Mergansers are large ducks with slender bills. This album shows three different species of Merganser on Norwood pond where, as far as I know, they are spring and fall visitors. The three species are: Common Merganser, Red-breasted Merganser and Hooded Merganser. The first several pictures are common mergansers. The Hooded are the ones in which the males have the striking black and white head. All the pictures of just one bird on blue water show red-breasted mergansers.