We seem to be seeing more Hooded Mergansers this winter. These shy fishing ducks are the smallest and oddest of our three types of American merganser.
They appear to erect their proportionately massive hoods (crests, really) not only when excited, but just when they feel like it – sort of a flexing move, it appears. This flex makes their heads weirdly tomahawk-shaped.
The dark-eyed and grayish female often has a coffee-with-cream color crest that usually is not as fulsome as the male’s.
The flexing effect is more spectacular on the male because his hood is mostly white on a black head and he has yellow-orange eyes. When his crest is down, it’s just a white racing stripe. y
(Brooklin, Maine)