Common Merganser

Hello,
Today I found a family of common megansers on our lake. Good thing i have a Bird Book to identify these. They can dive up to 9 m to get some fish.
I was on my catamaran kayak when i took this picture.
Used my 30D & 100-400mm.
Thanks for checking!

Elfie

Nice shots Elfie, must have been pretty smooth sailing. The image is nice and sharp.

elfieh wrote in post #5985795
Hello,
Today I found a family of common megansers on our lake. Good thing i have a Bird Book to identify these. They can dive up to 9 m to get some fish.
I was on my catamaran kayak when i took this picture.
Used my 30D & 100-400mm.
Thanks for checking!

Elfie

very nice. i've seen a couple of these in our local park. doesn't the mom carry her chicks on her back?

ed rader

Thanks woody and ed!
I took quite a few pictures but most where not that sharp - it was a bit windy here.
Elfie

That's a good capture of a bird that's normally very shy and hard to get close to.

As an aside, these are called Goosander in the UK and Europe, and this is a female - a "redhead".

Thanks Keith!
They tried to outswim me but with the kayak i could get close and because of the young ones, she did not fly away. They put their head in the water and swam like breast stroke swimmers. Really neat!

Interesting, I don't recall ever seeing one up close like this before... Nicely done...