Red-breasted Merganser at Ding Darling...

...continued from the Captiva Island posts.

Matty and I watched a sweet female Red-breasted Merganser diving and preening at the Ding Darling NWR for a long time. She was very fastidious with her preening, and just as ambitious with her diving!

Now you see her...

...now you don't!

A female Red-breasted Merganser uses her powerful webbed feet to propel her into deeper waters to search out her prey, small fish. She hunts by sight, so it's no wonder we found her in such clear water...she logged a lot of underwater time!

...now you see her again (which means it's time to preen)!

Red-breasted Mergansers and gulls--and a huge splashfest on Lake Erie...

...continued from yesterday's Red-breasted Merganser post.

Later in the morning we drove a little further west on Lake Erie to try another section of the lake. Dave had heard all three scoters had been sighted, and we were hoping for a glimpse. We didn't see the scoters, but we did see something amazing to me--thousands of gulls (mostly Herring and Ring-billed and even a few Great Black-backed Gulls too) were swarming around a huge raft of Red-breasted Mergansers. I'm sure this is a common sight for Lake Erie dwellers, but it was a first for me.

A group of Red-breasted Mergansers floating on the water surrounded by endless numbers of gulls.

Red-breasted Mergansers are fish-eating diving ducks, and this is the reason the gulls swarm around them. As a merganser surfaces with a fish in his bill, a gull is often there to help himself to the merganser's dinner. Mergansers are often called "sawbills" because their bills are serrated and resemble a saw. These sharp little edges help the merganser hold onto slippery fish, but even the serration is no match for a hungry Herring or Ring-billed Gull who can pluck the fish right out of the merganser's bill--pesky little fish thieves!

Icicles forming along the rocks and hanging from branches as the waves crashed up against the shore.

You would never know how cold it was in this photo...looks like a warm, summer day at the beach...

The Herring and Ring-billed Gulls were relentless in their thieving ways...

....of course, not all the gulls were stealing fish. Those closest to me and farthest from the mergansers were diving head first into the water to catch their own dinners. Here a group of juvenile Herring Gulls were trying their luck at fishing...

Heading north to Cleveland to see the huge flocks of Red-breasted Mergansers on Lake Erie...and a few blogging birder friends!

...another hockey tournament for Matty, another northern city and more cool birds for me, plus more birding with bird blogging friends! Rick, Matty and I headed up to Cleveland Friday afternoon. It was an easy trip--just 3.5 hours right up I-71 where Red-tailed Hawks rule! We saw a steady stream of them sitting on fences, trees, bushes, signs, and rails all the way to the hotel. You could almost tell where one hawk's territory left off and another's began by the regular intervals at which they appeared along the highway. It's amazing how easily they stand out as you're rushing down the road...

As soon as we checked into the hotel, Dave and Laurie called me to set up a birding trip for Saturday. While Rick and Matty would be hanging in the rink, I'd be hanging with Loopy and the Doodles. If you're not familiar with this birding couple, check out Dave's blog, Birding from Behind. The Loopy One is very funny...and the Doodles is very tolerant of the Loopy One!

Laurie and Dave in their beautiful backyard. Can you tell it's cold? It was 27 degrees F, but the windchill on Lake Erie made it feel so much colder!

Saturday morning started very early for me. I stumbled around the room in the dark, trying not to wake Rick and Matty, but it's hard to get ready in the dark and not wake anyone. It all worked out, though. I only fell once, and Rick and Matty were still sleeping when I slunk out. Cleveland is cold, but I had my trusty good-to-52-degrees-below-zero parka, and I used it. I only wish I had had a scarf for my cheeks, which are still rosy... The wet wind on Lake Erie is brutal, and exposed cheeks don't stand a chance. With snow pants and eskimo boots on, my feet and legs were nice and toasty, but my little leather gloves left my fingers numb after just a few minutes! (Next time I'll remember my warm gloves...)

Red-breasted Mergansers Staging on Lake Erie

I've wanted to go to Cleveland to see the incredible numbers of Red-breasted Mergansers staging on Lake Erie for quite a while. Since reading about them in Bruce Peterjohn's book, "The Birds of Ohio--with Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas Maps," I couldn't wait to see the spectacle. I was actually cutting it close arriving on December 5, because in Peterjohn's words, "the large Red-breasted Merganser flocks normally disappear by December 7." Luckily, according to Dave and Laurie, the weather had been fairly mild up to this point, so I guess the birds were a bit slow on the go because the mergansers were still there in huge numbers. Totally amazing to me, they stretched in a swarm from as far as I could see to the left to as far as I could see to the right.

...constantly moving and flying, endless numbers of Red-breasted Mergansers massed together on the horizon looking like a black river flowing in the sky.

From Peterjohn's book (and if you are an Ohio birder, it's a must-have for your birding library)...

Fall flocks of Red-breasted Mergansers along Lake Erie can be awe-inspiring. Beginning at sunrise, these flocks fly low over the water, some days to the east and other days to the west, depending on wind direction. They continue to pass along the lakefront all day, although the greatest numbers are seen in early morning and late afternoon. I once witnessed an evening flight stretching across the entire horizon and continuing for more than ten minutes, easily exceeding 100,000 individuals, with additional flocks flying by as the sunlight disappeared from the sky.

I have no idea how many birds Dave, Laurie and I saw, but we stopped at three different beaches throughout the morning and they were at every beach every time. Maybe they were the same birds looping around hours later, I don't know...

Peterjohn mentions not much is known about their movements. What is known, however, is "...each fall, Lake Erie hosts a sizable proportion of the North American population of Red-breasted Mergansers." The largest flights are between the Lake Erie islands and Cleveland. Interesting, though, is this has not always been the case. In the early 1900s, flocks rarely grew to more than 200 birds, and in the 40s the numbers were still small. Numbers started growing in the 60s and continued on into the 90s. Peterson offers that the introduction of the zebra mussel into Lake Erie has changed the ecology of the lake "dramatically," which has increased the populations of the types of fish mergansers like to eat. He counters that if these populations decline, so too will the staging numbers of Red-breasted Mergansers on Lake Erie.

Go mergansers, go! Fly like the wind...

SoloMerganser with spiky hair...

SoloMerganser looking for a pal...

SoloMerganser from behind...

Thanks Laurie and Dave for taking me out birding! I have at least two more posts on this adventure...

Jim McCormac posted recently on Red-breasted Mergansers on Lake Erie. Click here for his post.