Date: 4/26/24 5:13 pm From: Odette B. James via Tweeters <tweeters...> Subject: [Tweeters] Red-breasted Merganser
I don't know if this is worth posting, but it's only the second time I've seen this bird over the last 4 years in this location.
This afternoon at about 1:45 pm, there was a female Red-breasted Merganser with Common Mergansers just west of the Cedar River Delta, in the area near the trailer parks. The brown head did not have the sharp boundary with the neck plumage that the brown head of the Common usually has, the crest was very shaggy with several very long feathers, there was no white throat patch but there was an elongate pale patch between the eye and the bill, and the bill was thinner at its base than in the nearby Commons, giving the bird the appearance of a stronger forehead. Also, the head looked slightly smaller than the heads of the nearby Common females.
Odette James, at the Lakeshore Retirement Community (a wonderful place for birders to retire!)
