Every year, with the changing of the clocks in the spring, I find my time spent in the hours surrounding dawn extended. This gives me a rare and wonderful opportunity to pay attention to the movements of crepuscular animals in my immediate neighborhood and then, along my long commute to work, it gives me a chance to observe the increasing activity of ducks. Like so many other birds, ducks migrate. Unlike many other birds, however, they can migrate as soon as the weather conditions permit.

This year has been unusually warm and the ice on inland lakes and ponds has disappeared quite quickly. As a result, I am seeing lots of duck silhouettes criss-crossing the sky lately, which got me to thinking about all of the amazing species of birds that are currently passing through our area right under (or is that above?) our noses. The intrepid birders in the audience will probably have been out to see many of these birds already, but they are a special breed.

I pass by small rivers, large rivers and a large lake every workday and I am constantly craning my neck to see if I can spot any ducks floating on their surfaces. Sometimes the size of the duck is enough to suggest that I’m looking at a green-winged teal, or something like that. Other times I have to refer to the database in my head to try to match size and color pattern with the correct species.

Anyone who lives in Shelburne Falls, Turners Falls, or anywhere along the Mohawk Trail west of Greenfield might be familiar with the bright white bodies of male common mergansers. These guys are such a pure white that they almost seem to glow on a gloomy day. But every once in a while something new will show up and cause you to consider making a U-Turn and taking a second look. So let me add a data point to your database in an effort to improve the efficiency of your bird identification.

There is a wonderful species of merganser called the red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator) that can sometimes be seen in the same stretches of river. Slightly smaller and certainly far less white than their larger cousins, red-breasted mergansers have one distinct characteristic that will help almost anyone identify it. The characteristic I speak of is a wonderful Mohawk of spiky feathers that extend dramatically off the male’s head. Susan would name this bird after punk rocker Sid Vicious!

In a perfect world, filled with friendly ultra-cooperative ducks, I would have the ultimate profile shot to share with you today. In the real world, however, ducks (which are hunted) are understandably skittish around people, so one has to hide and wait for the ducks to unknowingly wander close. Thus it was during one of these games of “hide and please come over here” that I managed to get close ups of a male and female red-breasted merganser.

I was in a blind by the side of a calm tidal lake on Cape Cod (of all places) and the afternoon sun of that particular April day was starting to set. I had been in the blind on-and-off for several days and the local ducks had started to ignore what had been an odd, but not too terribly unsettling addition to their landscape. Red-breasted mergansers were there, but they never made the close pass I was really hoping for.

Then, all of a sudden, I noticed that my luck had changed. An entire group of mergansers swam by in water that seemed so shallow that they could have just as easily walked by. They were well within range of my telephoto lens and at times they were actually too close. The only problem was that I was slightly to the east of the ducks, which meant that they were somewhat backlit by the bright, smooth water upon which they sailed.

Had the light come from over my shoulder, you would see that the head of the male red-breasted merganser is covered with a light sheen of metallic green iridescence on top of what otherwise look like jet black feathers. The male also has bright red eyes, just like the male common merganser. Despite the imperfect lighting, I think this picture offers the perfect silhouette of this beautiful duck, which is what most of us will see from a distance as we drive by a body of water. If you see the Mohawk, then you’ve found yourself a male red-breasted merganser.

The females are far more difficult to identify. They share a basic uniform and both sport their own Mohawks. One could even argue that the flared-out head feathers of the female common merganser (the species in which the male has no elaborate head feathers) are more dramatic than those of the red-breasted merganser, but the difference is not enough to help a novice differentiate between the species from a distance. The slight difference in size is also of no real help unless you have a lot of experience, or have two species side-by-side.

The only characteristic that can reliably help you is a white chin patch on the female common merganser. The female red-breasted merganser picture shows a hint of gray feathers in the region of the chin, but a female common merganser has a patch of bright, glowing-white feathers. Personally, I tend not to see lone females very often, so the identity of the accompanying male does most of my identification work for me.

The red-breasted merganser can be found in both freshwater and saltwater habitats, but of the three mergansers (red-breasted, common and hooded) it likes saltwater the best. Wherever it is found, its main source of food is fish, which it must dive to pursue and catch. This explains the slender, serrated bill of the merganser, which allows the bird to move swiftly underwater and get a firm grip on its prey.

Mergansers, like all of the “diving ducks” have an interesting method of takeoff from the surface of the water. Unlike a mallard, a teal, or any of the other “puddle ducks” that can lift off almost vertically, mergansers must get a long, running start much like a sea plane would require. They are fast, powerful fliers that seem to spend a lot of their time flying just over the water. They can easily gain altitude to fly over trees if necessary, and may spend some time high aloft if they are trying to make a long-distance flight, but otherwise they stay low and fast.

Spring has sprung and the ducks are on the move. Keep your eyes peeled for their floating or flying forms and even consider keeping one ear open for their calls in flight. Many ducks will just be passing through and you might have to wait another year before you get another chance to see them.

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