Fun With Mergansers

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p.1 #1Fun With Mergansers

With a persistent ice cover on the pond at the Celery Farm this winter the grass carp exhausted the oxygen and there was a significant fish kill. Lots of corpses. Gulls, crows, vultures all took advantage, as did three female common mergansers. They were picking up small fish that hadn't decomposed enough to float. That didn't go unnoticed by a ring-billed gull that tried to use the French fry-stealing techniques it learned at the shore by trying to snatch the merganser's catch. The poor panicked bird dove and the gull tried to follow. The merganser was quicker and popped to the surface but had to dive again. Coming back up it fled on the surface with the gull following. With another dive and a surface run it outlasted the gull. Female mergansers already have a slightly deranged look, with the spiky punk hairdo, but watching the bird fleeing for its lunch was just funny to watch. Maybe it's just me.

Here are a few from the chase.