{"id":843,"date":"2010-12-25T15:48:41","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T15:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billreid.violet-flame.ca\/?p=843"},"modified":"2012-04-08T12:30:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T12:30:26","slug":"merganser-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=843","title":{"rendered":"MERGANSER MADNESS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>About a month ago, before freeze-up, I spent a late fall afternoon at a local lake to photograph mergansers passing through the region.\u00a0 These birds are notoriously shy and hence difficult to photograph. However, by studying the pattern of their feeding frenzies I was able to preposition myself at specific locales to obtain some half decent shots.<\/p>\n<p>Not only must the merganser dive into the water to catch unsuspecting fish, it must also outwit seagulls and other predators on the surface to keep it!! I was amazed at both the size of the fish they could wolf down and at the frenzy of the surface chase.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/FEMALE-COMMON-MERGANSER.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-848\" title=\"FEMALE COMMON MERGANSER\" src=\"http:\/\/billreid.violet-flame.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/FEMALE-COMMON-MERGANSER-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/FEMALE-COMMON-MERGANSER-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/FEMALE-COMMON-MERGANSER-1024x698.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/FEMALE-COMMON-MERGANSER.jpg 1564w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Female common merganser displaying the reversed serrations on the bill which puts fish in a death grip. This feature gives rise to the colloquial name of &#8220;Sawbills&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-FISH2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-844\" title=\"COMMON MERGANSER FISH2\" src=\"http:\/\/billreid.violet-flame.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-FISH2-300x203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-FISH2-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-FISH2-1024x693.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-FISH2.jpg 1566w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Male Common Merganser tries to elude an aggressive\u00a0 competitor.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-PERCH.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-845\" title=\"COMMON MERGANSER PERCH\" src=\"http:\/\/billreid.violet-flame.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-PERCH-300x186.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"186\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-PERCH-300x186.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-PERCH-1024x635.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COMMON-MERGANSER-PERCH.jpg 1561w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Wild surface action!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HOODED-MERGANSER-CATFISH.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-846\" title=\"HOODED MERGANSER CATFISH\" src=\"http:\/\/billreid.violet-flame.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HOODED-MERGANSER-CATFISH-300x205.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HOODED-MERGANSER-CATFISH-300x205.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HOODED-MERGANSER-CATFISH-1024x699.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/HOODED-MERGANSER-CATFISH.jpg 1560w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>CRUNCH!!!\u00a0 Hooded Merganser chomps down on a catfish.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Hooded-Merganzer-Crab.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-847\" title=\"Hooded Merganzer Crab\" src=\"http:\/\/billreid.violet-flame.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Hooded-Merganzer-Crab-300x232.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Hooded-Merganzer-Crab-300x232.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Hooded-Merganzer-Crab-1024x793.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Hooded-Merganzer-Crab.jpg 1217w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Female Hooded Merganser about to crunch into a crab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About a month ago, before freeze-up, I spent a late fall afternoon at a local lake to photograph mergansers passing through the region.\u00a0 These birds are notoriously shy and hence difficult to photograph. However, by studying the pattern of their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=843\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2277,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/2277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}