Season's Greetings to Our Hooded Mergansers!

Every year about this time we are visited by a beautiful little duck known as the Hooded Merganser.  These birds fly down to TT from various places up north and will spend the next several months with us.  They really like our small ponds, and particularly favor the golf course pond at Burlingame and Bullard Parkway.  A group can be seen here almost any time of the day through about mid-February.  The males are unmistakable, with their large white patch in the center of their very prominent crest (or "hood").  Females are slightly smaller and have a reddish crest.  Hooded mergansers are very alert and sociable and usually seem to be interacting with each other.  The males will rear up and splash each other in various courtship displays and will chase each other around the pond.  The group I usually watch has more males than females, which is always a recipe for trouble.  Hooded Mergansers feed on aquatic insects and small fish, basically anything that is small, alive, and moving in the water.  When they spot a potential meal, they'll quickly dip under and soon pop back up.  In TT, I notice that a few birds, sometimes only one or two, will show up days or even weeks before the others.  This year, I spotted the first one in the Burlingame Pond on November 21.  I'm not sure if these same birds stay around and wait for the others or if they keep moving south.  

Hooded Mergansers are a lot of fun to watch.  I plan to spend time with them over the holiday season.  With their bright colors and playful antics, they really brighten up our 'hood this time of the year.