Wildlife Watching Wednesday: Mergansers Are Super Moms
By: Tom Berg
Mergansers include a few different species of diving ducks that either live in the Midwest or pass through while migrating north. There are three species that are commonly seen spring and fall migrations, including common mergansers, hooded mergansers and red-breasted mergansers. Of these, only the hooded merganser can be seen year-round in the Midwest; the others just migrate through on their way to and from their northern breeding grounds.
One of the cool things about mergansers is that the females of the species are often “All Star” moms. Some people even call them “Super Moms”. Why? Because they do an incredible job of raising their young once they are hatched. And it’s not just their own young, but often the young of other mergansers, too.
For example, hooded mergansers prefer to nest in tree cavities (or nest boxes). One female might lay a dozen eggs in her nest, but other female mergansers might visit the nest before she starts incubating and lay additional eggs in her nest, too. Researchers have found hooded merganser nests with as many as 44 eggs in them! Those eggs definitely came from more than one bird.
Luckily, the mother mergansers don’t seem to mind at all. Maybe they don’t know how to count or maybe they just know that they can handle the job as Super Mom! Mother mergansers of all three species are also known to take in stray merganser babies that get lost or are orphaned, so a mother’s family may continue to grow even after all the eggs in her nest have hatched.
As a case in point, in May of 2020 a photographer in northern Minnesota got pictures of a Super Mom common merganser with an incredible 56 babies in tow. He was plying the waters of Lake Bemidji, looking for cool wildlife photos. He came back the next day and was astounded to count even more babies following her – a total of 76! Now that’s a Super Mom for sure!
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