Red-breasted Merganser

Mergus serrator


eBird provides this description of the Red-breasted Merganser:  Long-bodied duck with a thin bill and shaggy crest. Breeding males have a dark green head, brown breast, and gray sides. Females and immature males have a brown head and gray body. Bill is dull red. Separated from Common Merganser by thinner bill, shaggier crest, and slimmer shape overall. Dives to catch fish on large bodies of water, including freshwater lakes and coastal regions. Favors saltwater more than Common Merganser.  The website All About Birds provides this additional descriptive information about this bird:  The Red-breasted Merganser is a shaggy-headed diving duck also known as the “sawbill”; named for its thin bill with tiny serrations on it that it uses to keep hold of slippery fish. It breeds in the boreal forest on freshwater and saltwater wetlands. Males are decked out with a dark green shaggy head, a red bill and eye, and a rusty chest. Females lack the male’s bright colors but also don the same messy do. It parades around coastal waters and large inland lakes in the United States and Mexico in the winter.

I saw my first Red-breasted Merganser on the morning of Sunday, January 7, 2024, at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve near Huntington Beach, California.  I was in California to tour some Frank Lloyd Wright structures and to accompany Brent Paul on a couple of his safaris.  Bolsa Chica has a very nice boardwalk and walking trails, and it was from this boardwalk that I saw and photographed the Red-Breasted Merganser. 

RED-BREASTED MERGANSER (FEMALE/IMMATURE MALE) AT BOLSA CHICA, JANUARY 7, 2024.


Cool Facts About the Red-breasted Merganser From All About Birds:

  • The Red-breasted Merganser breeds farther north and winters farther south than the other American mergansers.
  • Red-breasted Mergansers don’t acquire breeding plumage until they are 2 years old.
  • Red-breasted Mergansers need to eat 15 to 20 fish per day, which researchers suggest means they need to dive underwater 250–300 times per day or forage for 4–5 hours to meet their energy needs.
  • The oldest recorded Red-breasted Merganser was a female, and at least 9 years, 6 months old when she was shot in Alaska, the same state where she had been banded.