The males of many bird species present their very best appearance during courtship. Hooded Mergansers become one of our most beautiful birds at this time. We found this courting male on a neighborhood pond Thursday afternoon. He was with two hens, one who apparently had accepted his wooing, a second who swam ashore and ran away whenever the excited male approached. He wasn’t a bit discouraged by her, displaying in courtship high gear, fluffing his headdress, puffing his neck, doing the head tipping and bobbing routine that is meant to demonstrate his fitness as a mate. Hooded Mergansers are not hard to find this time of year (small ponds in wooded areas are best places to look), but you’ve really not seen the bird until you see him courting.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Bird biology, Bird identification, Bird interactions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.